A fox in oils

I stare at a wall, a plain cream coloured wall.
That wall cradled a frozen moment.
A cheeky digger with a spark of life.
That spark grew, it became a wild fire, licking at memory lane.
The past has awakened.
I remember the thick paint lashed upon the lifeless square canvass.
The liquid turpentine slithering, blending, creeping into the oozing colour of burnt urban and smoky orange.
Plain and cold, yet my imaginary hand strokes the fur, soft as silk.
It looks ready to pounce on a clucking chicken.
It runs, it weaves through prickly bushes.
My paint brush, my wooden stick with bristles, clinging to droplets of paint.
It captured the creature’s every detail.
If I had time, if the round clock had not chimed;
I would not paint the face of the orange yipper, but the whole body.
From ears shoved forward to a tail flicking, wagging in the wind.
I step back and gather the fractured details.
I stare at what they create as I put them together.
A painting, my first painting of a fox’s glaring face.