Andrew Wyeth's Portraits

I am in his world,
standing among sycamores
bare of leaves,
in stark landscapes
of grays and muted browns.

We walk in silence,
blades of grass
crackling like tinder
beneath his boots
in a path 'round the barn door,
where one lantern swings
with a rusty squeak.

Ahead, among stalks of withered corn,
a brown coat flaps thickly on a pole,
beneath frightless crows
who long ago picked the cobs clean.
They pierce the air with guttural caws,
glide across plains
dotted with fallen trunks,
where I am sitting, or will...

Somehow, he has already painted me
when I am old,
where I'll rest for a while
to dream
of past and future
here upon a weathered log,
my coat trailing out behind me.

The lower right corner
is blank, unfinished,
but I can foresee my longish hair,
my full cheeks,
my post-retirement jowls.

Here I'll sit, fold my hands,
gaze teary-eyed through winters
blown across the years...

Scott Speck
11/20/2005