It's Still Life

Triptych de Crystalline
—the artist who paints the woman who watches him do so—

I. Water Speaks (the elemental voice)

Brush tip waits
Paused like the droplet
Balanced between skyfall and reflection

You blink once
Canvas remembers
The hush before thunder learns its name

You breathe in
And pigment listens
A ripple caught mid-birth remembers you

He holds light
With palms that echo
The way storms kiss still water awake

II. The Watcher Speaks (the sitter’s voice)

He begins
Still as the hush is
When water knows it’s about to be touched

His hand lifts
Slow as moonrise is
Above the tide-line of an unkept vow

I hold still
Not to disturb it
The fragile crown a drop makes out of falling

He paints me
Not how I appear
But how the light decided I should feel

III. The Painter Speaks (the artist’s voice, in brush and breath)

You arrive
The room breathes deeper
Like dusk when the swallows arc more slowly

I begin
Not with her outline
But where the silence changes in her wake

Brush in hand
I chase the shimmer
Of thoughts she leaves trailing across the floor

She won’t pose
She only happens
Like water startled into sudden grace

---

Poem form Parallelogram de Crystalline  
Some artwork is created using Midjourney AI, and is identified as such in the ALT text or captioned. Images are copyright and not to used without permission, which I willingly give when asked, and when not for commercial use. Imagery and poems/prose ©Misky 2006-2025.