They can hold your heart in their hands. Your beating heart in their surgical gloves. No mistake. Keeping you alive. Eyes wide open. The mind steady, feeling the beat of your heart in their hands.

You can apply a bunch of different reds, get a vibration going. Dark rich blood red, leaning over into dark brown, pulling on the woodwind section and back out towards purple and a little French horn. Orange red brings you back over to the far reaches of the strong consistent light of yellow. The sun yellow, the color of gorse in Ireland yellow. The gift of that different kind of heat yellow. A heat and a light that comes to you from outside your body. The gift of the planet yellow reaching over to green, Garden of Eden green. What have we got to lose? Without love the doors close. Without color the lights go out. Painting is for lovers.

I draw onto your body. My touch, a touch on your skin. The brush pushes the paint against your cheek. It unfolds around your eyes. I pull you in as the movement shifts. I get on your nerves. I see how the color can stir your digestive track, pull at your bowels, turn and lift, push and stroke the inner muscles of your body. We are lovers now. Lovers since the first drawing. Lovers for over thirty-five thousand years when you put your hand print on my body, my rock wall, asking to be met, asking for contact, sharing the heat of your life and your old deep longing – your hunger.

We are fragile here where we meet. This web we share is delicate, fine. Eyes wide, we hold it in our hands. The young bird that you found in the cave – how you held it, brought it close to your face. The seed you helped sprout. The first word you found we could share. The way you held me when I was born. I remember your eyes. The golden string, the marks we make on canvas.

We get to turn it on – to ride the wave. Have you seen how the garden grows when it is warm and moist, when summer comes? Things grow before your eyes. Have you seen how the ocean rises or the earth moves? Have you felt the tidal pull of the moon? The power in a horse’s thighs, the strength across their chest? This is the big league. Time to sit with the oak trees. Get some guidance. Stop with the money market and open the soul door. They say life is short. They know nothing. We are not just rock climbers on the weekend – we live in caves. We are nomads – dream travelers – late night shoppers – take-out artists looking for a gig. We live after hours in the shadows of the cities. We remember. We are patient. We are here.