An empty wooden frame, years
layered like rings of oak, the painting
discarded—a turbulent sea and sky
scarcely divided, streaks of gray
mimicking a choleric body of water.
This strife—a chaos, a suffering.
You consider a new canvas, how
it might be stretched, fitted—perhaps
a mossy kayak, a river, its creeping
tendrils and fronds jacketing mud-
slick banks. From the mullioned
window of a rural farmhouse, black-
slatted fencing bisects fields
of grass, rusty-feathered weeds.
Crows light in tree tops an acre
away. Jabbering ducks aggravate
the sky. A northern mockingbird scats
a rhyme, and coyotes shriek into night,
their scraping laughter sandpaper on slate.
The old tumult swells.
But ducks spread their wings
on rivers of air—like paddles turning,
countering surge. The canvas beckons
these birds, this kayak bearing you
through woodlands, copper fields patched
with fencerows, crows calling from threadbare
trees high above the chalky floodplain.
