SpillTheBeans

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where do the colors come from?
i once wondered.
       they begin with a thought, she said.
       a desire for something out of the gray.

sitting in the kitchen
laughing over a lost joke
you held up a fruit
twisted and hard
said “this is a star.”
you cut it in half
showed it to me
its petals shone yellow and bright

       do you remember
       the studio grandmother
       i couldn’t believe that it had no family
i used to run through that old house
looking for its heart
past stacks of books
and under blankets.
i found it – it was delicate,
a dragonfly wing lilting a quiet note
in shades of purple and green.

she has a garden on the side of the mountain,
where her fingers spread into the earth,
a painter’s touch in the soil
beckoning colors to their birth
springing green from orange rock

       a dusty rock stands near the house
       it reaches into the ground
       and watches the lightning
       dance across the horizon.
families are like pools
that rain falls on, but never break:
they ripple with the fall and become stronger.

the past holds us with its shimmering
she smiles when she tells her stories
her eyes shine with a glinting memory
of laughing with her brothers
growing from a child to a mother to
min farmor, a far murmur whispering
from alpine passes to desert valleys.

       just as it always has been
       this is the most beautiful,
       from everywhere and every when.

i have found a star
i call it grandmother.