Staying Awhile

Bought at an antiques store for a song: unframed print #225 of 750, signed by the artist Number III of the family name, all painters, (presumably) Those forbears hard to discard-- "Stay Awhile" its title, hospitably captioned by a country boy, like my father, perhaps-- posing beside his favorite horse on the back roads of Race Pond, Georgia, his playground by birthright, the Okefenokee Swamp. Staying awhile, I place myself in the painting, its cool morning mist in the hills beyond. The white clapboard house, red-roofed, six front windows, one dormer peeking out from the eaves; four steps up to the porch from the under-the-house black earth the house was built on; its checkered slats at the base prohibiting the crawl space where the doodlebugs hide. Kitchen matches to be left untouched, heeding the grownups chide. Only to the bugs is it dire: "Doodlebug,doodlebug, hurry on home--your house is on fire. Two Christmassy trees hug at opposite ends of the house, awaiting December decoration. A grassy knoll rolls down to masses of white and yellow sunflowers in a frenzied welcome. Past the grayed barn where tools are kept and the horses are tethered, I place myself in the painting, flying Superman style, spread eagle, arms out, facing downward past clapboard house, barn. Then, into the hills with their pale promise of perennial dawn where there is no sorrow, no pain, no heavy heart unshared, no loss we cannot bear.