Island Soul’s Eve

2002

20" X 16"

Oil on Panel

Original SOLD...but Prints are Available

An October morning on the Vineyard.
Out on the bluff a fog so thick that there is no horizon.
I can hear the tags on Gulliver’s collar tapping in the distance
as she heads deep into the mist and down to the spring.
I follow the outline of the buildings and run my fingers
along the sawtooth edges of the weathered shingles.
The cedar showing it’s age
like the old woman I am becoming.
The island’s skin.
I feel my way around the corner
and the spiny claws of a beach plum catch the cloth on my pants leg.
Through the haze I can see the dark craggy pods of the spent blossoms.
Snarly twisted edges gnarled like the fingers on the hands of a Halloween witch.
Woven between the branches, glistening in the mist, are a dozen spider webs.
Each thread outlined and sagging under the heavy dew.
And, if the weathered shingles are as the island’s skin,
then the fog surely is its breath.
When the ocean moves out across the land.
On this, the morning of all souls eve,
the spirit of the island rises and the beach plum reaches up
to catch it on the whisper.