From a crook in the valley
floor, I hear the long wires lead away from here with their thrum among the
wind--over and out to those places that you observed, seemingly with
half-closed eyes. I know that just
over that not too distant ridge is the village of monstrous eyelids on
outstretched arms, and the broken house with its fixed gaze.
Your hepaticas fill the
nearby swamps and an unearthly material vibrates across the treelines.
You painted the interstitial
kingdom, the insect chorus, and the trenches of a night sky. And you painted the way death calmly
sits beside its bed in the rain.
And now a small voice arrives
in spring like two rings from a bell.
Arrives through the canopy of
green stars.
Happy birthday Charles
Ephraim Burchfield.
Happy birthday Arthur Heron
Chasse.
