Seascape with Gulls: 
My Father’s Last Painting

An Ekphrasis
by
David R. Topper


Look,
they are not your usual strokes.
Not the stringent way you controlled your brush
all those years 
from Art School to an evening hobby to
this Seascape
that water
these waves
those gulls.
A lifetime drawing & sketching
mostly painting, mainly oils
with details, details, details – 
your forte.
You liked it when someone said 
“Oh, it looks so real, like a photograph.” 
But, of course, you worked from magazines 
National Geographic, Life, calendars, too.


Look again,
they are your strokes.
Someone said
“Looks like a watercolor.” 
Look closer,
the opaque white 
with traces of a brush’s bristles 
in oil paint with extra linseed oil
in very thin layers. 
The same way you made your sandwiches
thinly spreading the peanut butter & jelly.
A vestige of growing up during The Depression,
part of being frugal.
No, not frugal,
cheap … or
tightfisted, as they said then.

Look, really, 
they are not your strokes. 
Too broad, too loose, too vague 
too imprecise, too open, too unfinished
too expressive for your temper –  
not your usual rigidity.

Aah, 
the onset of dementia,
after those other strokes 
released & relaxed your brain’s severe part, 
loosening the grip on your hand, 
bringing this Seascape into being. 

And,
at the same time, as dementia
shut down another part of your brain,
all desire to paint vanished,
leaving Seascape with Gulls
 – your first and last unfettered work – 
	
as the very best artistic expression in your life.