Maxfield Parrish
AFTER MANY YEARS
This painting hung on a wall
In my youth.
Whose wall?
I can't remember.
I think it was my aunt's.
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I only know that
I sat opposite it at meal-times.
And gazed at it.
And walked into it.
And believed in it.
And knew it was Real Life.
*
And the conversations of adults
Merged and mutiplied
In an excess of boredom
Over my head.
*
Is it a great painting?
I doubt it.
It is too sentimental for that.
Too fragile,
Too fairylandish,
Too blue.
*
But it spoke to me.
One day
I would escape from the
Brown bread and butter
And I'd enter that painting.
And live.
*
I pondered upon certain things.
Why no bedroom?
Why no clothes?
*
But none of that mattered.
The painting sang
A haunting song
That was heard by something
Deep inside me.
*
I have thought about it
Sometimes,
Vaguely wondering
Where, what, when and why.
The years never answered my questions.
*
And then,
This-evening,
I surfed the net.
And there it was!
*
And it STILL speaks to me!
*
Another painting I feel drawn to here:
