Farm of the Past

Artist's Gallery

The Old Barn

And now, a final poem I wrote last summer:

Farm of the Past

Surrounded by a surging sea of grain

The old farm, near deserted, stands alone;

Its silos rise like beacons o'er the plain

To hail once more the harvest season come.

The length'ning shadows of the setting sun

Fall softly on the quiet, rugged barn,

Whose rafters echo yet with lowing calls

Of milking cattle from those days long gone.

The sparrows dart to nests beneath the eaves,

Hard-working tools and rusty wagons rest;

Old musty bales of straw lie in the loft,

While memories of the farmer’s work creep past:

The empty cattle walk and milking stalls,

The barnyard overgrown with thorns and sticks,

Rough fences, iron gates, and on the wall,

A license plate from 1966.

 

The silos flank the barn like sentries tall,

Their worn stone walls have sheltered years of grain;

Strong pulleys, iron rods, and rusty pipes

May never handle fodder corn again.

 

How has the small-time farmer’s work been lost?

The harvest’s precious, priceless product gold?

Has industry completely swept the field

Of tractors, haystacks, milking herds of old?

 

Gone are the family farm work, faith, reward,

Though harvest time continues year by year;

Only the empty barns and tools preserve

The farmer’s hard-worked livelihood so dear.

April Arrival

Artist's Gallery

Cozy Chicks Framed

A year later, I wrote a poem about the arrival of our first chicks. I think it goes with this picture pretty well. Hopefully, even those who don't love chickens will enjoy it!

 

A box full of wonder,

So lively yet tender,

Was delivered that drear April day—

The sprout of the seed for

The amazing adventure

That would grow in a promising way.

 

I peeked in the package—

There were ten cheeping chicks!

In the water I dipped all their beaks,

And settled them down in

The box like a bird’s nest,

Which would be their first home for six weeks.

 

They explored, scratched, and twittered,

Pecked food in the feeder,

And then slept kitten-style on the floor.

Soon rich, rusty copper

And midnight black feathers

Replaced cottony down of before.

 

With wonder we watched as

These beautiful “peepies”

Became hens of a fine, fruitful flock,

Changing so many ways—

From a box to a henhouse,

From wee “cheeps” to the egg-laying “bock”!

Dunbar Poems

Ohio History

Dunbar Bedroom

This old-fashioned typewriter was in Mr. Dunbar’s bedroom. It folded up into a portable carrying case—not unlike a modern-day laptop! He traveled extensively, so I guess he needed it….although I think he wrote drafts by hand first. There was also a nice office upstairs with lots of books for Mr. Dunbar, as well as his mother’s room.

Some of the poems I like most by Paul Lawrence Dunbar are “Sympathy,”
“Little Brown Baby,” and “Not They Who Soar,” but because they're all a bit too long for this post, here is another one I enjoyed:

Life

A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in,
A minute to smile and an hour to weep in,
A pint of joy to a peck of trouble,
And never a laugh but the moans come double;
        And that is life!

A crust and a corner that love makes precious,
With a smile to warm and the tears to refresh us;
And joy seems sweeter when cares come after,
And a moan is the finest of foils for laughter;
        And that is life!

Laundry & Sewing

Ohio History

Summer Kitchen

This airy laundry room at the back of the house reminded us that Matilda Dunbar worked hard doing laundry work while her sons were young. (His father left the family when Paul was four.) There was also an ice chest and a stove for summer cooking in this room—Mr. Dunbar made sure that his mother was well-taken care of! Below is an airy upstairs sewing room for Mrs. Dunbar, with large windows for plenty of light. Imagine making such an ornate dress on that old-fashioned seweng machine!

Mrs. Dunbar's Sewing Room

There was a nice museum next door to the house, featuring some interesting belongings of the Dunbars’, as well as recorded readings of some of his poems. Here is a short verse that I especially liked:

“Because you love me I have achieved,

Had you despised me then I must have failed,

But since I knew you trusted and believed,

 I could not disappoint you and so prevailed."

Everglades Sunrise

Artist's Gallery

Sunrise in the Everglades

The river, dark from midnight sleep,

Now mirrors lines of radiant glow,

From morning clouds of brilliant gold,

That with the rising sun’s rays flow;

While leafy palms and cypress bows

Clad in magnificent attire

The ever-widening path of glass

On which advances the ball of fire.

Writing this poem was almost as fun as painting this dynamic scene from the Everglades. I started with the sky, putting down lots of yellow and white with a palette knife. It’s very textured, and almost glows! The cypress “knees” were done with a flat brush, then smudged with white. A double-loaded fan brush did good palm and cypress trees. I also used a fan brush for that interesting lichen hanging from the branches. The water is a striking progression from navy to lemon yellow; it’s so roughly blended that it looks almost impressionistic. This is my favorite picture from the acrylic book—I love the contrast between dark and light, close-up and far away. It would be something to see this sunrise in person!

Snowshoe Rabbit

Artist's Gallery

Snowshoe Rabbit

Well, we’re not switching gears too much to look at a few of my own art pieces! I did this paint-by-number when I was eight years old. The many shades of blue and brown on the white coat have always intrigued me, and I think the subtle touches of red contrast very nicely. I did several paint-by-numbers at that time—astronauts on the moon, a puppy and soccer ball, and a beautiful one with dolphins jumping at sunset. I also composed this poem to go with my Snowshoe Rabbit painting when I was eight:

All creatures great and powerful,

All creatures great and small,
There's none like the snowshoe rabbit

That changes in the fall.

 In the spring it emerges

A shade of rustic brown;

 In the winter it shows up pure white,

Like a wedding gown.

Wildflowers

Artist's Gallery

Wildflowers on Roberts Pass

This painting is very similar to “Fireworks,” only it’s a watercolor that I painted two years earlier. I combined several photographs we took on a biking trail called Roberts Pass near our house. The greenery was next to impossible, and the goldenrod and honeysuckle proved very hard in watercolor! I donated the painting to a fundraising auction for our local Madison County Parks and Trails, who maintain the bike path.

Glass Frame

Here is a little poem I wrote about the painting a while later:

To make a painting of the trail,

I chose a subject—flowers.

I carefully drew each one to scale,

And painted them in layers.

Soon purple, lavender, and white

Stood out against the green.

I’d caught a sparkling memory of

A radiant summer scene.

Tropical Dreams

Artist's Gallery

Tropical Dreams

Here is my first acrylic painting. It was actually a kit, so all I had to do was follow the directions like a paint-by-number. It was a great study of light and shadows, though, and taught me a lot about acrylics. Here is a poem I wrote about the picture later on:

The sun shines warm on glowing fruit,
Even the shadows echo the light
From pineapple fronds and curly scales
That vividly shimmer yellow-white.
While, hidden in shadow, the tropical hues
Of papaya and kiwi are vibrant with green;
The mango and kumquats, golden and orange,
Finish off this radiant scene.