These Are My JOTtings...

The Canvas of Life

Days of joy, pain and in between
paint the canvases of our lives.

Success the strokes of yellow, orange and red.
The light dancing in the eyes.
Hopes float in Joy's balloon.
Crags with views of future great days!

Failures' shadows lurk in dark blues, greens, and purple.
Depression's nest of hiding.
Sorrow's den of "Why go on?"
Shriveled slug of emotions soil the sheets of Sleep, Sleep and more Sleep.

Musty sameness of ochre's and dull pastels fill most days.
Out of bed, dressing weary limbs,
partly alive, dreading the hours of trudging,
wordy papers smudged illegible,
faceless souls, we march in line,
muted trumpets of bosses speaking
to ears quite plugged by yesterday's speech.

Rarely are the days so "cut & dried."
Canvases are typically not just cool or warm.
Paintings of life and paintings of paint
are full of maelstroms of light and dark,
colors and grayscale.

Life is a time of hoping, waiting,
drinking a cup of coffee or tea with a friend,
who is waiting on much of the same.

The darkness and shadows of the background's purple hurts and dingy gray Why's
outline the Not-Alrightness of Earth's broken Creation,
cluttered by soft-focus Almost-Can-See-You sights,
drifting past weak eyes, no longer perfect,
distracted by irritated ears,
hearing dissonance close-at-hand and off in the distance.

The lone yellowish orange ray of the Sun of Hope
streams down from the North,
angular in aspect and stark in its demand that darkness bow before its Glory,
shines on this pair of longsuffering, compassionate friends,
sipping their warm cups in silence,
blessed to be together,
hopeful at the promise that survival is its own reward,
knowing intuitively of the better future waiting
for those, who trust the Heart of the Maker of the Day.

Line Count: 40

by Jay O'Toole
on September 3rd, 2018