by David M.
(Georges Braque, wounded at Carency, May 1915)
It was finally dark now, all the guns
quiet, and nearby a shattered tree the
painter lay (painter when not a soldier),
near death. The wounds were to his head
and neck. He’d gone over the wall with
his brushes tucked inside his coat –
he carried them everywhere – and a gun
that jammed (it wouldn’t fire back). It
hadn’t rained for days, so the ground
was hard and, in the light of the moon
and weary stars, with what strength
he had he was with his brushes
spreading out his out-spread blood,
spreading it out in the way of out-spread
wings. And he was doing this still when
the medics, low on their knees, found
him. At once they rolled him onto the
stretcher and, as they lifted him away,
his blood, winged now, lifted away too,
beyond the shattered tree, away and beyond,
which had been his hope – that in some way
he might live on, were he to succumb
to his wounds and this madness of life,
in some way live on beyond all that was
shattered (even to the very air), and
paint, and paint, and paint again.
JoAnn Ralph Visual Artist 