80 years, an old lady now...
Sitting on the front porch.
Watching the clouds roll by,
They remind her of her lover how he left her.


Olivia sat back in the porch swing, watching the children at play on the front lawn. 

Thanksgiving dinner had been devoured, and the dishes washed...and now her children and their spouses sat watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in the living room, while her grandchildren played ball in the grass in front of the house.

In her hand she grasped a thin, gold chain with a locket dangling from it...a gift from her deceased husband. 

35 years he had been gone now...her Joshua...her painter...


And of times long ago...
When she would color carelessly,
Painted his portrait a thousand times, or maybe just his smile.
Her and her canvas they would follow him,
Wherever he would go...


"Oh Josh, this is too much!" She laughed, reaching up to touch the gold locket as he clasped it around her neck.

"Not for you, sweetheart." He murmured in her ear, laying a tender kiss upon her cheek.

She smiled, feeling her heart flood with a warmth that only he could produce.

"Now please, sit...I was hoping to get this painting done tonight!" She said, shoving him gently toward the park bench.

He laughed, and threw his hands up in a mock-gesture of defeat. 

"I'm going! I'm going!" He laughed, settling himself down on the bench.

Then he sat as he had so many times before. Staring at her; watching the concentration set on her beautiful face, and the way that her brown eyes glimmered with inspiration as she captured his image on canvas.

Both of them artists, both of them knowing the passion and dedication it took to create art...they were the perfect match. She knew the contours of his face by heart, and he hers...They very well could have painted one another from memory...but chose instead to pose for each and every painting the other created. 

He was her favorite subject. Deep cerulean blue eyes, and features so finely chisled, one may have thought he was carved from stone. She had toured his features so often with her paintbrush, but more so with her lips and her fingertips.

They had been married in the fields where they met; She an art student...and he, a lover of nature. 

A field of wildflowers, set in the midst of a large orange orchard...a place she came many times to paint the sunset or the sunrise, and this one time...as sealed by destiny, she had found her Joshua.

She taught him everything she knew about painting, and posed for him many times as he captured the sinewy contours of her body. Their painting was a form of foreplay, leading to soft and passionate bouts of love-making amongst the wildflowers.


Cause they were painters, 
And they were painting themselves,
A Lovely world.


Two beautiful children were born of their love. 

Their first, a daughter, Alexia Jean. She was a carbon copy of her mother, long, smooth dark hair, sun-kissed skin and big, expressive brown eyes which captured the sunlight and held it like a pair of sparkling jewels.

Ryan Joshua was their second and youngest child. Taking after his father with the same blue eyes, and mischeivious smile. He had the same playful spirit as his father as well...as wild as the flowers the grew in their field, Olivia often thought...

They had what one might call the American Dream. Two children, a house with a white picket fence, and a couple of dogs...the painting, if you will, of a perfect life.


Oil streaked daisies covered the living room walls.
He put water colored roses in her hair.
And said, "Love, I love you, I want to give you the mountains;
The sunshine, the sunset too."
I just want to give you a world as beautiful as you are to me. 


Her fingers traced his face as he slept. And as she watched his peaceful face, she realized just how dark the world seemed without the light from his blue eyes illuminating it for her. She wished that she could have him awake with her forever, never closing those amazing eyes...Never taking them off of her.

He worked diligently to afford the things that any normal woman wanted most in life. The material possessions that really made no difference to her. And yet; she couldn't bare to tell him to stop, because he looked so genuinely happy when he would come home from a late night at the office, his arms laden with long stemmed roses.

"Joshua, you shouldn't have spent the money on me!" She would protest, removing the last bouquet from the vase on the hall table to make room for the new one.

"They're beautiful, Olivia." He would purr into her ear, "Just like you are."

And the chills never failed to come, making her body almost weak with love and desire for him.


So they sat down and made a drawing of their love;
They made it an art to live by.
They painted every passion, every home, created every beautiful child.
Winter they were weavers of warmth.
In summer, they were carpenters of love.
They thought blue-prints were too sad, so they made them yellow.
They were painters and they had painted themselves,
A lovely world.


He held tight to his oldest child, and rocked her gently in his arms.

"Daddy, I'm just going off to college." Alexia told him for the ump-teenth time, "It's not like I'm going away forever!"

Olivia watched Joshua with a soft smile playing about her lips.

"Princess, someday when you have to say goodbye to someone that you love, you'll understand." He told her, kissing her cheeks again and again.

They watched her leave, standing hand-in-hand at the side of the road and waving until the car was out of sight.

She turned to him, reaching up with her arms to wrap them around his neck.

"She will be back, you know?" She whispered to him, brushing her lips gently over his.

He kissed her back and held her to him, smiling down into the warm brown pools of her eyes.

"Don't you ever go anywhere, sweetheart." He said to her.

"You think I'd leave you?" She laughed, resting her head against his chest and being calmed by the steady beating of his heart.

They went back into the house together, and he led her to Alexia's room. Before she left, Alexia had spent the afternoon with her father in there, turning her bedroom into a studio for Olivia to finish her paintings in.

Olivia caught her breath and twirled in the sunlight cascading through the picture window.

"It's perfect, Joshua!" She laughed, running her hands down the blank canvas he had supplied for her.

"I hoped you would like it." He said, sitting in the window seat, "It was your daughter's idea."

She smiled warmly, and took up her paint palate. 

"I believe this calls for a new work of art!" She beamed, preparing the canvas.

"What are you going to paint?" He asked her, moving in behind her and wrapping his long arms around her waist lovingly.

"You." She said simply, "As if you had to ask."

He took his seat on the stool in front of the canvas and smiled at her, wanting to just stay that way forever and watch her the way she was at that moment.


Until one day, the rain fell, thick as black oil;
And in her heart, she knew something was wrong.
And she went running through the orchard screaming,
"No God! Don't take him from me..."
And by the time she got there, she feared he already had gone.


The rain fell hard and thick against the picture window in her studio.

She stood behind her canvas, putting the final touches on the painting of her Joshua, smiling back at him as he sat frozen before her.

He was late coming home from work, which hadn't surprised her at all. He had a habit of working over-time, and it was just about time for him to bring her her latest bouquet of roses...so she hadn't been worried about him at all.

The shrill ringing of the telephone broke her blessed silence, and she darted for it, bringing the receiver to her ear.

"Hello?" She said into the telephone.

Ryan came into the room and watched as the look on his mothers face went from a bright smile into a look of pure dread. Her hand gripped the receiver, knuckles turning white.

"Mom?" He said to her, coming up next to her, "Mom...what is it?"

"It's your father..." She said quietly, putting the receiver down onto it's cradle.

"There's been an accident..."


She got to where he lay,
Water-colored roses in his hands for her.


She arrived at the hospital not an hour later, holding her son's hand for support as they asked about her Joshua.

The doctor looked grave, and shook his head.

"We tried everything we could, Mrs. Chasez." He said to her, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder.

The tears fell silently from her eyes, accompanied by no sobbing, no screaming, just the gut-wrenching pain that she felt in the pit of her stomach.

"He had these with him..." The doctor said, handing her a battered bouquet of roses.

She took them, nodding silently, and sat down in the waiting room to collect herself, Ryan behind her with a mask of pain on his young, handsome face...so much like his fathers.


She threw them down, screaming
"Tell me you'll never leave me, with nothing left behind. But, these cold paintings, these cold portraits to remind me..."


A nurse came out of the operating room, holding in her hand a slip of paper.

"Mrs. Chasez..." She said, approaching Olivia, "I'm the nurse that was with your husband when he died...he asked me to write these things down for you..."

She handed Olivia the paper, and turned to walk away.

Olivia looked down at the slip of paper in her hands, tear-drops falling on it and blurring the words slightly.

"Love, I only leave a little...try to understand...I put my soul in this life, we've created with these 4 hands. Love, I leave, but only a little...I swear my pulse beats still...My body may die now, but these portraits are real."

Olivia stood, slipping the paper into her purse, and left the hospital with her head held high. Ryan beside her with a consoling hand on his mothers back.


So many seasons came, and many seasons went;
And many times she saw her loves face.
Watering the flowers, talking to the trees, and singing to his children.
When the wind blew, she knew he was whispering in a low voice...
And seemed to laugh along.
How he seemed to hold her when she was crying.
Cause they were painters, and they hand painted themselves a lovely world.


Alexia and Ryan were soon grown, and both of them married. They each gave to her two grandchildren.

Not a day went by that she didn't hold on to that necklace, with the final note from her Joshua tucked safely inside the gold heart that dangled from it.

There wasn't a day that went by that she didn't feel his presence around her, or look up into the sky only to be reminded of the color of his eyes.

And it was that way on that warm November afteroon, as their grandchildren played ball in the front yard.

She closed her eyes and drifted off into a deep, quiet slumber, and it was then that her heart beat for the very last time.

80 years, an old lady now...
Sitting on the front porch.
Watching the clouds roll by,
They remind her of her lover how he left her.
And of times long ago...
When she would color carelessly,
Painted his portrait a thousand times, or maybe just his smile.
Her and her canvas they would follow him,
Wherever he would go...
Yes, her and her canvas still follow...


She walked through the field, her canvas and easel tucked under her arm. The sunlight shining down and warming her face in a way that it hadn't in so long.

She felt a presence behind her, and turned, his bright blue eyes sending chills through her now much younger body.

He held out a hand to her, and smiled.

"I've been waiting for you, sweetheart." He said, taking her hand and pulling her close to him.

She closed her eyes and inhaled the scent of him.

"I've missed you so." She said, her voice filled with emotion.

He nodded, and ran his fingers through her long, dark hair.

"We're together now...and no one will ever seperate us again."

She nodded, and took his hand, walking off into the orange grove with him. Their field of wildflowers growing brighter in the evening sun.