In a hot spring day, I smelled dandelions;
for the first time in a long time, I stopped,
and looked at the different colors of the dandelions:
Red, yellow, blue, and white. I knelt to pick one up, but my hand stopped.
I could not steal the beauty all of the beautiful dandelions,
hidden behind the abandoned train cart that sometimes
served as an impromptu art gallery for the neighborhood Picasso;
he with his ragged clothes and dirty blond hair shouting about his
forgotten Albuquerque. An old ice mocha latte in one hand and a crack pipe
in the other. John, perhaps John Picasso. With his beautiful paintings of
a dark city that looks at him sometimes with discontent for his ragged appearance.
But, there is more to our crazy painter than meets the eye. He is a lady’s man, often
rumored that he has rich and poor ladies alike patronize him.
He is not just a Don Juan either; he is a generous man. He gives his creative paintings
to local businesses for free. He is also a green artist; he paints in every surface available:
bottles, cans, thrown away wood, and cardboard.
I smelled dandelions, and John shouted something about back there in Albuquerque.