Winter Landscape (1917), by Nicolai Fechin. Image in the public domain
You rock on a bad hip
across the museum courtyard,
bandana tied between
June’s bright afternoon and
your brow, grimace
at the gallery door.
You pause at the jamb,
pat the ageing sunflower
carved by another lonely man
making a new home
out of the desert. Here,
after a day of laying slick oil
over the red cheeks of his model,
Fechin called the flower out of wood,
incandescence humming
along with the strokes
of the adze, flutter of pine
starring the floor.
You enter, meet another fatherless
brother, and temper arid land
with talk of craft. Here, I see you’ve found
a life afterward — feast of solitude
set against the mountains
where the dead are not troubled
by loss; regret does not come
with recall. Where a cigar
accompanies the sage wind
as you and Fechin sit
in the north light amidst
the bustle of unseeing collectors,
donors, early to the exhibit
plastic cups of wine in hand.
~ E.E. Lampman
E.E. Lampman was born and raised north of the 44th parallel. Her poetry has appeared in Gulf Stream Lit Mag, Poetry City U.S.A., St Olaf College’s The Quarry, and other publications. She is an editorial contributor to Hazel & Wren and an MFA candidate in poetry at Oklahoma State University.
