The field stretches out like a long, slow breath,
a quiet that feels older than the boy who sits in it.
Jamie gathers himself into a small, tight shape~
knees pulled close, arms wrapped around
as if the world is too wide
and he must hold on to the one thing he can:
his own small center.
The coonskin hat tilts slightly,
a crown of childhood myth,
suggesting wild quests, hidden forts,
kingdoms built from branches and belief.
But today, imagination rests.
Today he sits still,
a lone spark in a sea of muted gold,
caught between the urge to explore
and the instinct to retreat.
The wind moves past him
like a thought he isn’t ready to follow.
The sky leans low,
soft with a kind of listening.
And in that distance~
in the hush between boy and horizon~
Wyeth finds the truth of childhood:
how even the bravest dreamers
sometimes fold inward,
holding themselves steady
against the vastness of becoming.
Christina pauses in the grass,
letting the wind cool her skin,
and thinks,
I remember running here…
I remember the strength I had.
The house rises ahead,
familiar as her own pulse,
and she tells herself,
every board, every window
still knows my name.
Her arms brace the earth,
and she thinks,
if I can’t walk home,
I can still reach for it,
even as her legs
lie quiet beneath her.
And in the captured stillness,
I see the truth Wyeth painted:
strength is not always standing~
sometimes it is the fragile body
turning its face toward home
and choosing, again,
to try.
“Art is the medium by which a person, having experienced an emotion, intentionally transmits it to others” – Leo Tolstoy
A bleak monotonous landscape,
Had been her outlook for years.
She so vehemently longed to escape.
The young woman fought back tears.
Christina’s world was internment.
Trapped in a body with muscles decaying.
Poor dear lacked discernment,
Her will to walk, her spirit not obeying.
Muscular Dystrophy restricted her being.
Crawling helplessly across the field,
The horizon beyond is all she will be seeing.
Determined to create an impenetrable shield.
To separate her from her crippling disorder.
Forcing herself daily, her bent limbs to be unfurled.
In spite of her debilitating marauder,
In pain Miss Christina Olson seeks to view the world.
A
drybrush
tempora-
producing white
out
Tribute to Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009)
Wyeth Wyeth
He cut a rug
Wyeth Wyeth
He smoke all drug
Wyeth Wyeth
Need a hug
Wyeth Wyeth
Stoke the nug
Wyeth Wyeth
He is so cool
Wyeth Wyeth
Never cruel
Wyeth Wyeth
He go in pool
Wyeth Wyeth
McDaniels rules
Andrew Newell Wyeth the artist
An American realist painter
Choice subjects were local land
And people around him
His art reflects plight
A father's hold
Keeping him
Very
Close
Andrew Newell Wyeth-July 12, 1917-January 16, 2009.
His art has an emotional pull that seems to draw me in.
Inspired by Nayda Ivette Negron's contest favorite painter.
He called them the great men
Thoreau, Goethe, Emerson, Tolstoy
Yet even as a child, I discovered Wyeth's greatness
“Christina’s World” called to me
fascinated child, as mama shopped
Christina’s painting intrigued me for hours
Blind neighbor, his inspiration
Christina was lying in a field of wheat
Saleslady explained her sad life
Glorified only in Wyeth's detailed, brilliant strokes
Staring at her so long at age eight
Mama bought the print on which I still marvel
*Pennsylvania Artist Andrew Wyeth received the National Medal of Arts in 2006 and died
just 10 days after my father on January 16, 2009. His most well-known work is Christina’s world
* Poem written April 19, 2014
Artist Andrew Wyeth
Quite a comical man
One day he painted his neighbor's portrait
But only his old work boots portrayed
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