under the sheets of rain

24" x 18" / acrylic on canvas / $525​

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Under the Sheets of Rain was the first painting that I completed after my Father and Mother's Death in 2016. The paintings always come first.  Until a feeling or experience has been moved through me by means of image, color, paint, I often struggle with "words" for they are not my first, best or preferred language.  Under the Sheets of Rain was painted while I lived in the home my parents' had built a life in.  A period of time which is included in a chapter of my life that I think of as the Interstice - an intervening space, or an interval between spaces and times.
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Under the Sheets of Rain

I smelled the coming of the rains
aroma of incense washing away flesh, bone, blood, remains

I felt each raindrop as it fell
becoming part, indistinguishable from the rising swell

I heard the moisture fall around
I am the voice of its collected flowing, the naming of its sound

I tasted the salt of a torrent of tears
collected waters of lives and rivers held in divine liquid spheres

I saw the world mirrored in every drop
merging into awareness, absence of separation; no start, no stop


I am under the sheets of rain
blanketed in waters of waking and sleeping
I am under the sheets of rain
sheathed in memories and weeping
I am under the sheets of rain
days and nights passing without number
I am under the sheets of rain
descending like a curtain of uncertain slumber

obscuring what I believed to have known
obscuring what I believed myself to be

until

the force of its falling was caressing my skin
reminding me of what must wash away and what life chooses to begin

I am under the sheets of rain
it has soothed the burning pain, fire of rebirth
I am under the sheets of rain
a seed receiving nutrients deep within earth
I am under the sheets of rain
vision washed clean by elements hidden, revealed, seen
I am under the sheets of rain
re-membering how beauty can be transmuted by pain


I smelled the coming of the rains
aroma of incense washing away flesh, bone, blood, remains

I felt each raindrop as it fell
becoming part, indistinguishable from the rising swell

I heard the moisture fall around
I am the voice of its collected flowing, the naming of its sound

I tasted the salt of a torrent of tears
collected waters of lives and rivers held in divine liquid spheres

I saw the world mirrored in every drop
merging into awareness, absence of separation; no start, no stop