Over Oakwood

Over Oakwood

~ trompe-l'œil æssemblage art & essay by Michael Douglas Jones

Original artwork available at Gallery 322

  Over an oakwood fire, the water I had drawn from the well on Sunday, rose in a steam cloud from the kitchen kettle, and drifted dreamlike out the open window into the winter sky.

  I held my head back, and drank it in deeply from the spring rain.

  This water quenched my summer thirst, and a joy of recognition welled up in me.

  It rolled down my cheek as a tear, dropping onto the ground, where it joined a fallen leaf from the autumn tree.

  The leaf and water merged into the soil to become the budding oak beside the well, where I had drawn water on Sunday.

                         

                          ~Michael Douglas Jones

❦ 

 

Both Bowl and Spoon

Both Bowl and Spoon

~ trompe-l'œil æssemblage art & essay by Michael Douglas Jones

Original artwork available at Gallery 322

Journal Entry; Amelia Courthouse, Virginia; April 5

 

   There were gentlemen; there were heroes; there were common men, and cowards. Death was equal in its coming. That I survived is not enough; I must prosper, that those boys be remembered. I will remember them to my own sweet mother, and if I should meet their mothers, I shall describe them, each and all, as gallant troopers to the last breath; heroic sons of America.

   The many wars waged for causes, just and unjust, are eventually resolved; history is written and revised as years pass, but mothers whose sons never return will hold that simple truth in their eyes, and still continue to give again. They know no other way. 

   A mother is both bowl and spoon; filling, sharing, giving; seeking nothing in return; overflowing, holding nothing back.

   I have nothing to offer these mothers, only my eyes looking into their eyes, letting them know that they are not empty; that I too am their son, and they are loved. 

                         

                          ~Michael Douglas Jones

❦ 

 

Courage is Quiet

Courage is Quiet

~ trompe-l'œil æssemblage art & essay by Michael Douglas Jones

№2 in the Courage series

Original artwork available at Gallery 322

 Breaking day sun slips through the thornapple branches in jagged cuts of light and night. I rise with its pain, and listen, but Courage does not call out commands, or curse from atop the porch step to the chattel below; she will not wait for reinforcements. Courage whispers, and walks toward the post road where the work will be done. She does not ask to be Courage, as I do; she takes the task at hand and handles it now, so I walk behind her for a time, in the early morning, as the fog lifts beyond the tree line. We are tasked this day to measure the moon, at the ridgetop, a full day’s journey, and the many that stay behind say it cannot be measured, it is beyond our scope, and the demons on the ridge are many. Courage wears the scars and creases of those demons, so I will walk behind her awhile, and ask to be Courage for this one day.

   I wear my father’s butternut overcoat, and deep inside the left pocket is the Colt pistol that he turned on himself, in the war before this war. I carry the weight of that Colt, the weight of that coat, the wet wool heavy on my scars and shoulders, and every morning, I reach into its worn pocket, moving my fingers across the blood and oil polished pistol grip, knowing that I am on his path; knowing that his way was thick with thorns and tangled honeysuckle vines, with deep mud, and deeper madness, and I ask to be Courage for this one day.

   Courage is quiet, and walks with a steady step through the tall grass, even as the grade steepens near the slip rail, a full furlong before the post road, where the work will be done. I fall behind in the high noon sun, my heavy boots caked with the drying mud of years lost, trudging the circling path of thorn and vine. By late afternoon, Courage is a shrinking silhouette on the west ridge, and I am remembering the cool shade of the hawthorn and the thick sweet scent of honeysuckle, its taste on my lips, so I sit awhile to consider my direction for tomorrow, and move the pistol to my right pocket.

☽ 

 

On This Day

On This Day

~ trompe-l'œil æssemblage art & essay by Michael Douglas Jones

 Original artwork available at Gallery 322

On this day, I search for solace, outside my cottage door on the moss tinged cobblestone with my old friend, the cedar bench; the two of us, grayed with age, waiting for the moon to rise.  We sit silent, as a small audience to the sunset songs of cricket, frog, and creek; I collect my thoughts, which are always of you. Life is not what we have lost, it is the gifts we give, the miracles and mysteries we find at every turn, just outside the door. On this day, I see it from my seat outside on the cedar bench.

 ~Michael Douglas Jones

❦ 

 

The Line of Life

 

 

 

№1 travailler la ligne
№2 la ligne de vie
№3 faire bien le travail
№4 donne de toi

~ trompe-l'œil æssemblage art & essay by Michael Douglas Jones

 Original artwork SOLD at Gallery 322

 The Line of Life

  Tucked inside a pocket of my soul coat, deep behind my weary heart, I carry the ancient pages; fragments mostly, of stories told across the oakwood smoke of low winter fires, from fathers to sons, from nursing mothers to every baby born. The stories of those that worked the line of life, alongside their kith and kin, and gave generously to each and all; their small deeds growing like sown seeds through the generations,

  So, walk with me through the cities unseen, out beyond the empty stone towers. Carry no coins; sow seeds that are not for sale, along the side roads and forgotten railroad tracks and timber trestles on the west side, the wrong side of town, in the fallow fields where your fathers once grew cash crops of cotton and cover crops of red clover. Plant fruit trees and berry bushes close to the path, and know that someday, off from the distance, a hungry soul will walk that way seeking sustenance. Plant ideas of days where there is only one of us, and that is all of us, and all of everything there is, and know that someday, off from the distance, a hungry mind will walk that way seeking solace. Your name shall be alongside those in the ancient pages, and I shall be the annalist, to write your name forever.

                                         

                                                                          ~Michael Douglas Jones

❦ 

 

One Day

One Day
 Trompe-l'œil L’Assemblage by Michael Douglas Jones ©2024
 Original artwork at at Gallery 322

   She asked, and I said,
one day, I will build a small cottage down near the Wilderness Run, where I can listen to the cool deep waters of spring freshet. I will raise a red bank barn with a fine stable of Morgan horses. I will plant and harvest, and plant and harvest, and plant again. I will see the seasons; the spring growing, the winter resting, and all the days between.
   And she asked why, and I answered,
I long to marry and dance many a Virginia Reel in the parlor with you. I long to start a family; the tiny tickle of babies laughing, filling our rooms, filling our hearts, and I long to sit on our front porch in the still evening of peace and plenty into our old age.
  And she said, you should ask.

❦ 
 

The Still Evening

The Still Evening
 Trompe-l'œil L’Assemblage by Michael Douglas Jones ©2024
 Original artwork SOLD at Gallery 322

  In the dark days, we rode together; we weathered every inch, and we set our stories on another day when we would war no more, when you and I would sit in the still evening of peace and plenty on the kingless road.

  Now, cruelty rules on court street, as storm clouds roil with a rumour of revenge, and the fields are afire again. Flames unfurl and whip like swallowtail guidons in the furious wind across the ridge, and we are called to ride once more.

  Yes, you are scarred, and wounded, yet I see that you can still place your burnt hands together, showing a simple gesture of grace to find the divine in each and all. Your heart is war weary, this is painful, yet you are my continuing hope. I ride at your side, until we reach the still evening.

❦