The Painter
August 10th, 2006Save as PDF
The Painter
Inspired by the late Eugene “Bud” Leake
From his folding chair out by the barn
the painter scans the landscape,
countryside he’s known for forty years or more.
Beyond a nearby wall of tumbled stone
the fields raise stubbled flanks
up to the county road. A line of trees
tops the shallow rise to pillar the horizon.
Flat gray sky suggests a snowfall.
He sees a stage in three receding planes.
First, the brown grass foreground to the wall;
next the pasture field, foreshortened;
and then beyond the distant spindly trees
the sky’s dull sheen – you’ve seen it
on the bottom of a worn steel skillet,
circular abrasions from late evenings of scrubbing
after dinner guests have left
and there’s a glass of wine to finish;
and uneven umber smudges where
some grease has burnt itself into the metal.
When you tilt the soapy pan in light
the swirls revolve.
From left to right the lowering clouds whirl past.
Their passage changes colors on the ground,
patterns in the sky,
refreshing both his eyes and this familiar field
from one rapt moment to the next.
How plain it seems when we look up
and see a dull midwinter sky.
The painter notices and records it all.
When the overcast seems featureless,
he paints a message for us.
August 10th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
How wonderful, John. I just wish that Daddy were here to read your poem. Infact his second love to painting was poetry and this is the first one about his paintings! Thank you from him.
August 10th, 2006 at 4:52 pm
Hi John: I think we met many years ago. (I was once Holly’s roommate at Shipley; was Bud’s niece; am Nina’s first cousin.) She sent me the poem which is wonderful. Couldn’t resist studying my husband’s old iron skillet. Umber smudges and engraved abrasions. Thanks for showing us “the sky in a skillet” but especially for painting Bud in my mind.
August 12th, 2006 at 10:24 am
John, you make me proud to be a painter. This is a wonderful poem that I’m pinning on my wall. I’m afraid I’m becoming like that character in Doris Lessing’s Golden Notebook who pins up newspaper clippings, torn-out images, notes from friends and all other kinds of things loved and interesting because, I think, her brain had become too full. In my case, it’s emptying out fast. So I’ll look at your poem every once in a while and fill up again.
August 14th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
“When the overcast seems featureless,
he paints a message for us.”
I love the way that last line brings the poem around to the idea that you bring your own perceptions to bear on a painting–or a poem, at that. Bud Leake might not have been thinking of his skillet, but I’m guessing that he got across a beauty both universal and specific enough that you could find a reminder in it of what to you is beautiful. And I know how you feel about your skillets.
August 29th, 2006 at 5:41 pm
Hi John,
I read your poem on the very same day I went to visit Jackson Pollock’s studio. The floor has been preserved and is covered with the very same circular abrasions and uneven smudges; I think you really got the essence of an artist’s creative spirit. Bravo!
Georgia