Poetry in ink & oils

Back in autumn, Carolyn Edlund suggested we collaborate for a National Poetry Month exhibit at the Sherry French Gallery. We both worked off the same scene, she in oils, me in whatever pen and blank book were at hand, sharing some in-progress versions along the way. Thought you might enjoy seeing & reading the end product. Enjoy!

Where Cows Once Grazed by Carolyn Edlund

Afield

Long before the sun cast along the corn silk

or the school bus crunched up the road,

he hurried

through the barn shadows,

murmured to the cows,

and ankled through a swarm

of lean, milk-thirsty cats.

The barn was his for that dark sliver

before the caterwaul

of father and younger brothers:

just cows and cats and boy.

The fence gate clings

by cobwebs and a rust-flaked hinge,

and the barn is a hollow echo of dust

and breeze.

Here are sunny

hours all his own, family scattered

afield—leaves in their own corners now.

An old ache pulls

him back. And in the clean,

gold afternoon, he slows

his pace, feels the heat

through the smooth

of his bare heels.

That old tractor road curves

him along the hayfields,

through the green whorl

of warm tree house branches, and curls

him into its red-dirt cocoon,

leaving his shoes

behind.