The Artist and a bottle

Saw him at the supermarket,
had seen him before
when he was a child, he bought two litre bottles
of plonk,
told him to buy a better quality wine,
he didn’t listen to me.
I shared a table with him and
a painter in the park,
they sat there drinking didn’t offer me any.
The artist, disturbed by our silence  
got up and began painting a tree,
red trunk, black leaves and something yellow in between,
I thought of the Belgian flag;
winter dark place, windy many canals, but the beer was good.
The artist, now famous, sold his tree moved
away and said deep things to magazines about art.
My childhood friend died; cancer it was said, but it could have
been the cheap wine.