Web, 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.

3.  Self-Portrait as Pictograph

Painted on gray rock, every bit revealed
himself to himself, a brick-red bison
like a hand beside him, the empty oval
of that chest his undecided lung.

Strokes on the wall could mean most anything.
Crows would never tell. The lake splashed near feet
in the middle of stopping and going,
and out of the large head an eye looked east

because that was the path over water
and into the cause of time. In such ways
he found the holy hidden ritual:
Come empty to the empty boat. Steer
to a gray cliff. When you puzzle
at the story, let the stiff rest of the body fly.