Pictures from Rugby Avenue, the corner of everywhere and everywhere else.

a lover’s song

Forever ago, as if it were yesterday, I stood rubbing your nose, in hopes that that "spot" would go away, and you saying "hey, that's not ink", with me, later, flashing at you the most awful of orange paintings. You said, "that's nice, but could you turn it around?"

I wore your clothes because I had none, and you gave them to me. We sat, riverfront, viewing, me drawing your face as the August sun shown down upon your softness. At that time we were all lovers, complete but not defined in anything but the now of our us-ness.

Time passed, with you picking me up at Knickerbocker, as we (really, me) didn't want what I was doing at work touched by our togetherness. Never did you complain, you smiled, as I, sitting on steps, counted the moments "'till we'd be together again" .

After awhile my toothbrush moved and we stopped doing the "pick me up at Knickerbocker" thing. We became together and I remember those days, and the best of passionate nights.

We strove on. I bought more clothes as I had none, made obvious by the lushness of my wardrobe that fit easily into the storages spaces at Ernestine Street, a home not noted for its closets.

We made it through what I’d refer to as my Cadillac Hotel phase. You know, the time I painted the living room with black outdoor house paint, in figures nobody would ever see.

You still loved me “more than I loved you”.

I loved you for forgiving me, and helping me paint that room a soft pink the next day.

Ernestine Street was like home plate for baseball players and I came home there. The studio, the patio we made, the rooms for the boys set us, me, in place. So, I thought the place was small, and it was, and you and I agreed, and went looking for something a little bigger, finding it, almost

immediately after the first of the year. You always know something's right by the way it feels, and by the way everything falls into place. Ernestine Street will always be our little house, and Rugby Avenue, the second corner of everywhere and everywhere else, after Raines and Birr, will forever

be our home.

Front Porch #1

enough room, enough space,

two porches, one up, one down.

black and white, black and white.

Under Apple Tree Looking East (9189)

the beauty of your own backyard

is that you don't have to go anywhere else to start,

and you're home when you're finished.

Flying Bridge Spring (1989)

the spring of '89 from my flying bridge,

what a treat this place is.

Under Apple Trees Looking South (1989)

on land the most prevalent color is green,

all its tones are worth the struggle.