Lemon Orchard
Lemon Orchard / Limoneta
17 3/4" x 16"
oil on panel
excerpt from novel:
Rusted bells of goats clang like old pots in a distant, dry meadow. The light is blinding, as shocking as the sudden adrenaline of clarity rushing through his veins, a huge whiteness consuming everything. He closes his eyes to it, breathing deeply, feels the arms go around him and all that has brought him to this moment, Radiant arms of the sun. Arms of the flourishing air. Arms of the calling birds and singing grasses. Arms of the gracing serenity, nameless and complete, somewhere beyond definition, beyond his knowledge, yet understood. Suspended between the earth, the sea and the sky, alone on the turning world, all mysteries and riddles unraveling with ease, all troubles becoming no more than a single feather drifting to earth, discarded by the idle passing of a bird, his heart is suddenly light and open. The transformation is so profound and the realness of having stepped away from his body so absolute, he isn't entirely convinced it isn't death he has experienced, but he feels no fear about whatever it is that has just happened.
