The portrait painter

When word was out
that he, the village artist,
was making another portrait
no one dared to see it
as they expected to drop dead at first glance
as they knew others had died in admiration
just by watching his art,
which they burnt.

So they shut his cabin
locked the windows and doors
with him inside
and it became quiet,
all was good
and grass overgrew the dwelling.
The cabin rotted,
the village slowly vanished.

Years after the last villager had died
a little girl found her way in the cabin,
stepped over the skeleton
drawn as she was to the painting
and she took it outside
where no one ever expected
such beauty to be found
in such a derilict place.

The colours that never saw daylight
started to live,
the immortal face they saw
was that of a young man,
the artist himself, as he had been,
while he was being buried alive
by the people
who were for ever faceless.