Scaffold, 38"hx60"w, oil on canvas, 2009

“Poem Painting" series. These works were created in response to the sonnet sequence "Key Fallen to Blue" by Richard Robbins, from Other Americas published by Blueroad Press, copyright© 2010.

2.  Down to Table Bay

Nothing lost, a key fallen to deepest blue.
This is how he explained the barricade
halfway down the thin road to where new
apples fattened in the orchard caged

by ponderosa. Below that the workshop
where propellers found their pins. And tiny
cabins there, there, road falling toward the dock
like water rushing past each family

to meet itself. When he could get that far,
past machinery, other people’s stories, to shore,
he sat on the planks, cast and reeled
until the light fell. He borrowed a boat then
to make the next last visit to a man
painted on gray rock, every bit revealed.