Oh some scholar, Oh some sailor

A quiet morning as I write this.
A dusting of the first snow overnight.
Deep enough only for squirrel tracks and making white the edges of things.
A warming cup of tea, Will Ackerman’s Imaginary Road playing in the background,
and solitude to envelope my weary soul.
This is the moment I dreamed of last summer.

It had been a long season of drought and days of still hot air.
But during those steamy sweltering days when I returned to my Pennsylvania studio after my first show on the Vineyard, I was washed clean by the generosity and companionship of the island folk. Truck loaded down with borrowed antiques from the Granary so I could weave their history back through
paintings yet to come, nourished and revitalized my creative soul was ready to begin again.

I set up the studio with the antique butler’s iron, glazed Mayhew pitcher,
cracked leather bound journal, the worn white of Burnell’s navy tunic,
and the warm wooden angles of the ironing board.
After a couple days of kicking up dust on my way out to the studio and all manner of
neighborhood noise being drowned out by the roar of the air conditioner,
and longing for some winter stillness, I decided to paint late into the evenings.

On a hot summer night no matter where you are one is in need of an ocean.
So I brought it close and opened the window to catch the breeze.
The color is deeper in the evening shadows.
A gathering of Vineyard talismans nestled among those from my own journey.
Clouds on the horizon and a lamp within reach.
I am brought once again to Emily Dickinson, the harbinger of my passages…

Oh some scholar, Oh some sailor
Oh some wiseman from the skies
Please to tell a little Pilgrim
Where the place called morning lies.