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.

❦ 

 

Small Deeds

Small Deeds
 Trompe-l'œil L’Assemblage by Michael Douglas Jones ©2024
 Original artwork available at Gallery 322

 Journal Entry: July 1, 1862

 Tonight, we will sleep along the wet roadside near the Chickahominy River. This falling rain may wash away the blood of the thousands lost today on Malvern Hill, but if this destruction continues, every person will be gone, as every structure, every tree will be burned, and all that shall remain will be the detritus of this once sylvan paradise. There is little trace of the past and little hope for a future; there is only now, and all that I have to give now are the seeds from my pocket. I have a habit of keeping seeds from any fruit I had the pleasure to have eaten, because of stories told by my Ohioan relatives; the tales of Johnny Appleseed, who died around the time I was born. Now on the grim days, when I feel as though I have so little to give, I still carry a seed to remind me that it is not these great armies that change this world; it is the small deeds, the small seeds planted for someone you might never know. Perhaps, amid this destruction, if I can at least plant a seed, I have accomplished some small act of compassion. Perhaps one day, a tree grown from these small seeds might provide shade or sustenance to some other weary traveler.

❦ 

The Two Ways

 

The Two Ways

Trompe-l'œil L’Assemblage by Michael Douglas Jones  ©2024

Original artwork available at Gallery 322

I would save, she would share;
we were opposites attracting.
I would rage, she would whisper;
I was cold to her compassion.
I was sinner, she was saint;
together, we were all the world;
the way that it will always be;
for you would not know her warmth,
had you not felt my chill.

❦