Portrait


You were the woman crouched 
back in the lower acres of the meadow,
under the umbrella of that distant elm,
a yellow skirt fluttering in the balmy breeze,
a bushel of threshed grain collected  
as your prize, your set piece,
the landscape’s silent focal point.

You were its punishment, 
as well as its peace rewarded,
a soul aligned with its environs,
remote from the politics that attend
our daily chores here, the painful
naked honesty of our respective labors.
Someday you’ll be some child’s mother,
but in this moment’s particular freedom, 
your eager smile conveys youthful instinct,
an innocent faith that has yet to learn
the ravages of unpainted time, 
the raw truths that art cannot capture.

First published in Northwind Magazine