Noted American Painter Andrew Wyeth, 91, Dies

He was born here, lived here.

Three generations of Wyeths,
limited in scale yet rich in associations,
in spite of the scenery:

aging people and brown, dead plants.

Alone for hours, he tramped across the countryside
collecting the hidden melancholy of the pastures:

timelessness of rocks and hills.

“There’s a lot of cornball in that state!” but here

we have scandals hidden in brushstrokes,
hidden in Master Bedrooms
Around the Corner.

Her face tantalizingly unseen,
Christina rested her weight on one Long Limb.
Stray hairs blew towards the very thing which she leaned:

a dilapidated farmhouse, gray and shadowed
alone in the far right corner of a large yellow field

alone against the walls of a dimly lit museum.

When he chafed under criticism, Christina’s World
died in his sleep at his home.

Grass grows thick over tracks to a farmhouse with no lights on.

All the people who have lived here no longer give interviews;
Everything they have to say is on the walls.

You feel the bone structure in this landscape,
because the whole story doesn’t show.





Source: "Noted American Painter Andrew Wyeth, 91, Dies." The Times. Trenton, NJ.  Saturday, January 17, 2009. 

First published in Children, Church & Daddies. Sept./Oct. 2013.  Vol. 245.  Print and online.
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