Andrew Wyeth, by Therése Halscheid

Andrew Wyeth

A man painting the same farm, a single hill
a thousand times and never tiring.
.
A man wandering through stark hours, 
using a brush to bring alive 

a profound moment 
on a tree --

something as quiet as a bare branch, a split log, 
objects honest as lit windows

of moonbeams working 
upon the fading patches of snow,

of tilted pails, the barn, its 
uneven beams, the wild hillside 

and those who endured it,
down to the simplest gestures 

of earth, and what the leaves were
always adding.

So many years, and still 
his eyes are in awe 

of the rugged truths which pause, open 
and spread out for him

by a land that forms stories  
from sun and shadow

especially the dark lines 
in the grass, the varied tracks  

from every vehicle which has driven through 
but always moved on. And how 

he never moves 
on, not that way --

perhaps for him, moving means to remain
in the same place, going deeper. 

Therése Halscheid

Therése Halscheid: "My latest collection, Frozen Latitudes (Press 53), received an Eric Hoffer Book Award. Other collections include Uncommon Geography, Without Home, and a Puddinghouse Press Greatest Hits chapbook award. My poetry and lyric essays have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Tampa Review, Natural Bridge, Sou’wester, among others. I hold an MA and MFA, and have taught in varied settings, including an Eskimo tribe in northern Alaska, and the Ural Mountains of Russia. For the past two decades, I have chosen to live simply by house-sitting, as to write in unique environments. My photography chronicles my journey, and has been in juried exhibitions. Website: ThereseHalscheid.com."