An Open Range

Cracking Cattle

I wasn't going to travel into the imagination much more. But I'm being riddled on the issue … and it keeps bugging me to apply myself to the naming convention … and inquire as to whether what we call imagination … is imagination. I don't suppose we could call it a … ' banquet in my father's house.' But there it is … a wonderful program on … National Geographic … in high definition format … making me feel like I'm there … next to the Amazon river … while some natives are grappling with a huge anaconda … as the man of science is attempting to measure its length.

 

John Lennon … the former Beatle … wrote the song … Imagine … and imagined a whole generation of young people … coming back a little to understand the way we apply ourselves … to picture imagery in our minds. Poets do that … and good poets do that well … helping us to be a part of what they are saying … as if to share in the experience ourselves. Then the painters take it up … put it on canvas … and catch the light of our visions … in paint for us to see with eyes.

 

As a young man … I soon became mindful of the fact that I had a sensitive nature. I found myself responding to situations and objects … that wasn't always like others. I began work … in the Department of Industrial Development … in the Malaysian government. In my director's outside office … where his secretary sat … he had hung a calendar produced by the Japanese company Matsushita. Every page and month … contained a different painting … of factories … in oil. And there were all sorts … covering the diverse business activity of the company.

 

My eye caught that … and it caused a sensation of the unusual. In a totally unrelated response … it brought me back to the time … my brothers and I stripped naked in the room … before going to bed … and simply wiled the time before the nap … looking at each other's prick. Unusual? We didn't even know what we were doing … and I still wonder about that. That image returns to me … in a strange relation to something from Celt. A sudden vision earlier today … had me standing outside a paddock near a barn … where cattle was being loaded onto a truck … for the abattoir.

 

I was standing next to someone tall … in a 10 gallon white stetson. As the cattle … was herded from the paddock into the metal railings … for that single file climb onto the truck … this person next to me … became groggy … and lifted his hat for some air. As I looked at him … he returned the gaze … with eyes that had grown dazed … and suddenly he collapsed in a heap onto the muddy floor. It was Celt … and I saw myself wondering what shook him.

 

I was enthused by the episode of the vision … so I did what I sometimes do. I'm sure its not recommended for children above the age of 13. I followed through the vision with my impulse. The man was my younger brother and we worked this ranch in Montana. And that's him in the white stetson on the ground. Just then I heard the wife … close the front door to the house and was carrying a tray with coffee and cookies to where we stood.

 

I rushed my brother to regain consciousness … and he stood up on groggy feet … just as she came close. Just then the scene changes to my studio … in the back part of the house … where I sit working on the picture of my brother on the ground … while in the background … the cattle is being loaded. There's an awful snow storm lashing the countryside outside … and the wife walks into the room … carrying two cups of coffee.

 

She passes a cup to me … glances at the painting … and walks over to the glass windows to view the storm. ' What's that?' she asks suddenly. ' Matt fainted while we were loading the cattle … yesterday ' … I respond without hesitation. She pauses to … to give me that … Tom … I'm looking at you now … honey … look. I look up … and ask if I'm missing something about her that morning. She laughs her strangely curious inquiry … purses her lips and tosses her head like the winds outside the window. ' Do you men … have to hide everything from the women?' She suddenly asks.

 

Right there … I'm outside the window … in the storm … grappling with the only woman I have ever loved … and the great creation phenomenon of the world and universe. The storms are tearing us away from each other … I have tears in my eyes … her eyes are wet … and gradually our hands release each other … as the storm draws us away from one another. My heart falls into a dead faint … and I figure I have to do more than imagine.

 

' Matt has a sensitive disposition to the way he experiences himself ' I add. ' The cattle was simply following what we set up for them … and were coolly walking to their death … after being fattened. ' I dunno what it was … I simply said … Fran is coming … and he jumped back on his feet. I think it reminded Matt … of the way … we made the decision to stay with the ranch after father … and then the marriage … the children … ' I trail off … unable to complete what I had started as a certain … purpose … in what we do.

 

She comes back to stand behind me … as I worked on the muddy ground on the canvas. American iconography … certainly this was a new twist … to what the usual fare was about. I can feel the magnanimity of her presence … and in the light of her apparent gaze … the storm felt like it was abating … and I could have sworn birds chirped outside the window. She pressed on my left shoulder with her hand and gave it a squeeze. ' Keep going ' … she whispered … ' its gonna be great.' Then she turns and leaves the room.

 

A short while later … I hear a ' hoi ' … as the sound of boots … scrap on the wooden floor. ' I'm going out to town … thought I'll check out the new Smith & Wesson … comes with matching gloves for the grip … he sounded off grandly. ' I'll need some Sherman tobacco ...I tell him. He turns to the door … then stands there to look at me. I turn around expectedly. ' The Mayan took their people up the staircase … to the God of the sun … stood them there … shoved a sharp blade with two sides into the chest above the heart … turned the blade into a vertical position … then reached in and pulled out the heart.'

 

' I paint ' I tell him without preamble. ' I think its why I like girls ' … he replies. With Matt of course … it wasn't like it was a confession … it was the exaltation of the possible joys of life … in ways that are always seeking something more … newer … better … and hope it'll never stop. And as brother he simply ropes everybody along.

 

I seem to recall that … I saw oil painting of factories … in the lobby of Matsushita Headquarters in Osaka … mounted on wooden frames. Jeez! But I can't be sure. Its not simply about getting older … I have always been that way … as if my favorite things compete with what I have to do … to make of me … what I think I ought to be. It just happens … like its linked to my mind … heart and soul. ' You would think its that way … isn't it? ' … it asks.