Home Is Where The Heart Is

I always share on my facebook watercolor page when one of my paintings has found a new home.   Today's share was especially touching for me because the painting, due to a miscommunication, quickly passed from it's new owner into the possession of the subject of the painting, Jack, a poet, who also happens to be homeless.  So, while the painting has another very happy new owner, it can not be hung in his home.  How I wish Columbia SC had a program in place that provides housing for the homeless.  Jack has a painting to hang.

Here is what my friend posted on my facebook page telling me how her painting found it's new "home" with Jack:

"Jack's Picture..... Sharon, as you know, you gave me such a wonderful gift this Sunday, your lovely painting of Jack Burkheimer, my dear friend who is called the Poet Laureate of the Homeless.  You saw that I was speechless and could not even thank you at first for crying.   What an honor to have that gift.  The picture is such a likeness that it could be the photograph I took that you used as a model.  Let me tell you what happened.  

I took the painting to our picnic in the park that we have every Sunday at 1 -- Food Not Bombs.  When we parked and everybody, including Jack, was gathered around to say Hello to Tom who had been sick for several weeks, I brought out the painting to show them all, knowing how much they would all love it.  In the midst of the Ohs and Ahs ... Jack reached out and gently took it from me.  With tears in his eyes he said, "That's so wonderful that you all would do this for me: She is such a gifted artist.  I can't thank you enough.  I'll let my daughter keep it in her house till I get a place of my own -- I hope some day soon."  Wow!  I wanted so bad to say, "No, Jack, she gave it to me and I love it."  But of course I couldn't.  So, now it has a new home."

Here' is one of Jack's poems:

FIGMENT

Oh look at all the people going to work
as if marching off to war.
They pass by me, but don't see me as if
I am a figment of my Imagination.
Later they march off to party and still don't see me
I must be a figment of my Imagination.
They see my backpack, my worn shoes
As I fade into the bricks.
Walking down the sidewalk, they go out of their way
To avoid me.
They must see me.
I say in my best voice, "Good day".
They do not hear.
I must be a figment of my Imagination.
No eyes meet mine.
How can they?
I'm fading into the bricks.
No living person can feel this hollow; it's proof
I am a figment of my imagination.
They talk bitter of us, as if I'm not there--of course I'm not.
I'm fading into the bricks.
I've done a lot in my life, and will again--they don't see.
The fading is almost complete.
And just when I think there is nothing left to see,
Kind eyes find mine--
They pull me back.
A hand shake, or caring hand on my shoulder.
They don't look down or talk down to me.
They look and talk to me.
If only they knew, that kind person---
I want them to know, that in that moment of their concern,
I know that
I am not a figment of my Imagination.
Jack W. Burkheimer