Trying to paint a photograph of bare trees reflected in a puddle

Thanks to my friend Kara for the reference photo - you can find that (and the line about grief being a brutal teacher) on her blog.

4/5/2023

My father, the therapist, opened his men’s retreat with a reading
Of psalm 139: search me, know me, David prays to the mystery,

And men cried. Nobody could explain what happened there.
Grief is a brutal teacher - my friend wrote in the same place she

Left her photo of trees, or the shadow of trees, in rain - with a deeply
Gentle aim, and I can’t think of how to paint it. The trees aren’t trees

But light echoed on the surface and in the pavement
Beneath and in the clouds above. What color can you call

That sky? It teaches us that all is loss, because nothing at all
Will remain to us, but then nothing belonged to us in the first place

And that’s the first lesson. The second lesson Is the pure pleasure 
Of trees reflected in a puddle, not trees at all, and the third lesson

Is the fact of trees. The fourth is everything. My father was on fire.
If I try to paint this puddle, what will I find in failure?