Vita Brevis, Ars longa

With summer long gone
Fall is here to stay
Trees sway
Blowing breeze my way
I see them change colors
Green to yellow to golden to orange and red
At each stage I think
This is as beautiful it can get
Oh how wrong can I be?
I realize fall is its own ace.

I sit by the pool,
Reading Freedom by Franzen
With wind on my face
Chilling my nose and cheek bones
I love that no one is around and
Have the pool all to myself
It starts raining
In a split second
Clouds turn ashen grey
I notice the rain drops splattering
Suddenly the pool is too tempting
I look around one more time and
Love that no one is around
With the wind blowing and the rain pouring
I jump into the pool.

I float
With rain drops on my face
Humming the tune of magic doors
I float.

I open my eyes to see
The ashen clouds moving
Revealing the orangish golden tinted sky
That had a purple outline
Like a child’s quest to pour color carefully
Into the outline
Not wanting to ruin the painting,
The moving of clouds was like
A painting unveiled by the artist
As the last of the light shimmers and fades
With worldly ecstasy – I try to capture all of it
In my mind.
The twilight set in
Leaving no trace of the delicate painting,
I back away from staring
At the new shade of the sky – raven black
Obsessed with wanting more from the artist.

I come out of the water
Every cell in my body shivering
Every bone in my body aching
Knowing that given a chance
I would do it all over again,
For the simplest pleasures of life
Like witnessing a painted sky
Makes an ordinary day, extraordinary.
Like they say,
Veta brevis, ars longa.
Life is short, art is long.