Landscape, with Livestock
by Patricia | 4.03.09(On “Pond at Thompson’s Station” by J. Kirk Richards)
by Tyler Chadwick
The sun has been misplaced.
Or, if you’d like to get more
Biblical, it’s returned
to the dove’s abyss—or
was that Milton? I can’t be sure
as I dance so near the beginning
with words so supple they
bend into themselves until
only the landscape remains:
the field flushed white, hills
seduced into bed
by cloud vapor so thin it will
barely last past the break of day,
the trees an erratic screen
against the sudden emptiness.
Consumed in association,
their teeth tight to the grass,
the livestock nearest the water’s
point of clarity absorb this light
in slight movements of jaw and
tongue, slowing the arc of day
as it reaches to nest
in the foreground
of this slowly digested vale.
Find more Tyler here.
April 3rd, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Thank you, Tyler. This is a lovely poem to end the Spring Poetry Run-off with, and I like how its cotext slides sideways into the visual arts.
Thanks to everyone who participated in WIZ’s celebration of the arrival of spring:
Robert Frost
Emily Dickinson
Tyler Chadwick
William Blake
Jim Cobabe
theric jepson
greenfrog
J. Max Wilson
D. H. Lawrence
It was fun—excellent company—and I deeply appreciate the interest shown in WIZ.
If WIZ is around next year, we’ll do it again, so maybe folks want to consider writing spring-themed poems for the next runoff.
:-)
April 3rd, 2009 at 3:14 pm
No, no. Thank you, Patricia, for this prized place in your final Spring Poetry Runoff slot. I feel honored to have made it into your Zone twice.
And since I’m confident WIZ will still be wizzing next year, I’ll get right on those poems.
April 5th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Can I say again that I love J. Kirk Richard’s paintings and think Tyler’s poems on his work are fantastic.
April 5th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
I love how you begin sentences with interrogatives and end them declaratively, Wm.
I think Tyler’s poem on Richard’s painting is a gorgeous act of community and I’m absolutely grateful and delighted to be able to end the Spring Poetry Runoff with it.
Forgot to mention. For those who didn’t notice (WIZ’s link text colors can be a little understated), there’s a link to Richard’s painting beneath the poem’s title. If you haven’t gone over to Thompson’s Station for a look, you’ll be glad if you do.
April 5th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Every act of punctuation is a declaration of war?
April 5th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
LOLOL Nice turnabout
No of course not especially not from a nice dictator like yourself
But I imagine from some people declarations of war are declarations of war whether punctuated well poorly or not at all and in the case of some people acts of war punctuate declarations of any kind
Viva Wm
April 6th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Thanks, Wm.
You’re such a generous dictator that I’m compelled to overlook your flippant comment about a poet’s giddiness and follow Patricia’s cry with “Heil AMV!” *he says with a goosestep and full arm salute*.
Oh and, “Poets of the world unite!”