INDIAN SUMMER
after Andrew Wyeth’s “Indian Summer” (1970)
Wakes us on a day in the north
like a girl who has walked deep
into the woods and finds herself
among the shadows of tall pines,
the smallest patch of sky startled
at their tops. She stands
on a slab of granite, warmed
by a sun that is moving toward
some other place. I ask who,
feeling the heat jailed in stone,
would not shed clothes, white
of her bottom made that much more
white by the fading line summer
has drawn across the back?
—from Rattle #27, Summer 2007
__________
Todd Davis: “I was in the 2nd grade when I first stumbled upon the paintings of N.C. Wyeth in the Scribner’s Classic, Treasure Island. By the time I was in 5th grade, I’d graduated to his son Andrew’s paintings, and since that time I’ve come to love N.C.’s grandson Jamie’s work. I guess the Wyeths truly have a hold on me. I only hope my poems evoke something that their art carries with it, that they collaborate in the best sense of that word.” (website)
