Still Life

After you went, ‘Keep busy’...
they said. ‘Find yourself a hobby’,
so, I took up painting, again...
landscapes, still life...portraits,
foolishly thinking it might help me
to forget...

that al-fresco mural on our vine-clad
terrace wall; an apple-dappled,
wheat tricked meadow...and you
a dab-hand at fluffy, white clouds
that never cease to make me smile.

The problem was, a pair of Great Tits
built a nest there this Spring...
in one of the Moroccan lanterns.
A dozen or more chicks they had,
but they’re fledged now. Magic!
Except...

the blighters shat all the way down
the brickwork – so it needed a bit
of touching up, here and there,
and for the first time in months –
picked up my brush.

Got carried away though...thinking
of you...so I did a picture of your face;
Only, then, it poured – heavens hard;
a proper summer squall...

Thus, the colours bled one into the other;
blue eyes – lips like cherryade,
and that ditsy dandelion crop of yours,
completely erased, and all that remained,
a rainbow – was you.