Old age should burn and rave at close of day.

This is Aunt Emily. She is possibly the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life. Look into her eyes.

No, harder. Do you see it?

It's like she's seen everything that ever there was and so knows everything that ever will be. No one on earth has laughed so much as she, or wept or worried or scowled or smiled or loved or hated or longed or worked or sat in silent reverie. This woman is both entirely full and entirely spent and, wise, at her end, knows dark is right.

The artist's name is Paul Murray. I hope he doesn't mind that I posted his pictures here. If he wants me to, I'll take them down. I just had to share them. I've studied a lot of art history. I understand the work of Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock enough to like it more than most people do and the work of Michelangelo and Rodin enough to like it less than most people do. And let me tell you, I don't think I've ever had my breath stolen so fiercely by the work of any artist as I did by Paul Murray's portraits.

His subjects are the mountain dwellers of the Appalachians. They live well past 100, drawing water from streams and trapping food and sewing clothes and making babies and telling stories and looking after each other. They are nearly indistinguishable from the earth under their callused, battered feet. Their hands are gnarled and their fingernails black for their toil. Their children are being drawn out from the land, lured by microwave ovens and Corelle dishes and Big Macs and high-fructose corn syrup. They are nearly extinct. And Paul Murray rages against the dying of this light with his sharpest weapons: pastel and graphite and oil and ink. Godspeed to him.

Don't you just want to hold this little girl and run your fingers through her hair and tell her how beautiful she is? You can't see it in so small an image, but there is so, so much pain and wisdom on Pippi's young face. Will her frail deeds dance in a green bay? I hope so.

This is the definition of precious. Zoe is her name. If anyone will catch and sing the sun in flight, and not grieve it on it's way, she will.

Joseph. His expression stops my heart: a grave man, near death, who sees with blinding sight that blind eyes can blaze like meteors and be gay.

Oh, earthy mountain people, curse, bless us with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night.

If you want to see more, go to www.paulmurray.com. Go. See more.