kindling

Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Winter Landscape

I ran into him on one of those rolling hills that Ontario has on one of those bright days after snow.

The canvas was splashed with colour anyway— his eye picked up life amid the white, like the eye does amid green, hunting cherry tomatoes in thick leaves.

It stopped me— to see him see it and press cold oil paint to grant the same memory to me, unearned.

I offered him a hundred bucks for it when it was done, but he shook his head, said, “I’m old now, and the frames make good kindling.”