A SYMPHONY OF THOUGHT

          I can-no believe it; it's not snowing nor raining but when I was walking on the top of Green Mountain earlier this afternoon, I could see quite a few approaching snow squalls in the north - like an army on the march, they appeared to be marching in this direction.  At the moment, I'm listening to Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 and if it were snowing, I think I could well imagine and visualize each snowflake to be a graceful ballerina flitting and twirling gracefully to the ground and joining the host of other ballerinas before them.  Perhaps looking through the eyes of an artist helps me put my mind and soul in places where others are blind or maybe it's the imaginative part of me that creates fanciful visions and thoughts; just because I can't reach out and touch the stars, doesn't mean that I'm not already holding them in my hands.
         As I listen to the symphony wafting throughout my studio, the cozy warmth of the wood stove chuckling near the door and just peacefully writing anything I please for my blog, all sorts of thoughts run rampant through my mind, especially the thought of completing the double portrait just to the right of me.  Their smiling eyes seem to be saying, now that you've created us on the blank canvas; quit procrastinating and get on with the job - don't you know that one of is now dead and the other is 99.5 years old?  Sure go ahead, I think to myself; make me feel guilty and yet, if the old man were to pack it in before I finish the painting, I just might feel a touch sad that he never got to see a painted portrait of him and his wife together.
          Death is such a curious event, I can't help but wonder what it will be like when I take my final breath and my big brown eyes stare sightless at my surroundings.  I keep thinking how much I will miss this place called Earth, all the people I've loved through my lifetime and the many things I just plain took for granted; yet loved just the same.  To never smell, hear, see, taste or touch anything again is something that is very difficult to grasp and comprehend and it saddens me.  I'm not much of a believer in the hereafter and if there is, I doubt very much that the likes of me will ever be allowed into such a revered place.  Perhaps that's why I look at things and attempt to grasp them within my being and hold on to them with a tenacity that would shame a belligerent mule.  I've taken so many mental snapshots over the years, special moments that I still enjoy re-running from time to time; not so much to fill my mind with melancholy, happiness or even sadness but because as long as I remain breathing, the people and critters I shared those brief moments with are still kept alive; they still breathe why I still breath..
          I'm waiting for a friend to arrive for Sunday dinner; he just lost his wife very recently and I can't imagine how he must be feeling.  I've lost a wife and more than just a few very close girlfriends over the years but not to death - they either left on their own accord or I did - each and everyone of them bringing a distraught pain, an ache and a loss of being to me, but to actually have one of them die while we were together, I can't even imagine how that would have felt.  Well, the maestro has laid his baton down and the symphony orchestra has ceased, not even an echo of their strings and horns can be heard reverberating throughout the studio and since my friend has just arrived with two cold beers, it's time to join him - cheers, eh!