Letter to Red XIX

12.28.24

Red,

Tonight the curtains rose on another painted stage of my becoming.

Oceans crashed. Roses opened.

Tada.

Unemployed again. I looked at a painting of a mountain through binoculars all through the astral afternoon. The artist sat criss-crossed with a bucket of black paint behind me. A painting less about the mountain and more about the distance between the artist’s hand and her mind and the word, ie mountain. A light blue shade of purple rocky mist. I hadn’t thought about longing in that way in a long long time. Bluely. Not since the start of all this.

Now I’m up late at this desk by her window.

Castles. Music. Candles. Rain.

The artist said you can throw a bucket of black paint into the air all you want. The air will remain immaculate. But I’m all covered in colorful light again, Red. My dirty Shakespearian rags. Tada. I am unmasked in my newly naked love.

I walked the coast with my brother on Christmas. The sand and sea and the sky again. The mountain, the mist. My brother’s body. My brother’s mind. We sat atop some driftwood as he recited an ancient phrase. Blue eyes shut tight to remember. Existence, by nothing bred, breeds everything. Amen. I read aloud some famous passage about the firmament. Dividing the waters from the waters or whatever. I said these pages will make for good kindling. My brother’s laugh harmonized with the crashing surf. Archways etched into the cliff face. We dug a big hole in the beach. Burnt down an old barn door. Wonder into wonder. And that was that.

The holy rainbow lights of my becoming. I just unscrewed one of the burntout bulbs to be examined in the other room. The table all arranged like a table in a play. Flowers and bottles and candles and books. The record player’s broken still but the radio was on. A lightning strike outside the circus will trapeze the darkness from the light. I lit a match. The red bulb opened like a rose in the flowy glow. A letter on the table newly written and, newly edged, the letters formed old words:

Bicycle. Dancing. Electricity. Door.

When you close your eyes tonight, Red, what shapes will you see inside your mind?

I close mine and the curtains fall up like a fountain. The fortune teller sits on a painted stage again. Another dark horse. Another triumphant arch to dance our freedom through. The Event is in the Hand of God. The fortune teller’s hand is hidden inside a Janus mask. The mask, obviously, is red.

Everything right there before him. Centered. Nothing left behind.

Roses open. Oceans crash.

I loved. I love. I will love.

Tada,

Dyl