Miniatures(You Must Live Within Your Means)

you must live within your means

they said to the artist who was breaking off

little pieces from the sun

when he ran out of cadmium yellow:

"I don't know what you mean," he sighed

and dreamed

that he was eating clouds

while they remained perturbed...

[that he was...]

out in the fields reciting,

biting off the wind so late in the day;

and in the green midnights

(fresh out of rain barrels),

he wept his rainbow tears, quite carefully:

catching them on his

frescoed fingertips,

one by one-

so that later

in 200 years they were widely prized

by the great collectors everywhere

for their unusual sheen-

mary angela douglas 8 may 2011