Old Home, Ogunquit, ME, by Liz Hutchinson

Old Home, Ogunquit, ME by Abraham Walkowitz (USA, b. Russia), 1926.

Old Home, Ogunquit, ME

I.  

Home is where the women wear
sleeveless summer dresses. They sprawl
on the lawn or lean against 
the trees, the bench, the frame.

Light pours into the painting
from wherever you are. The houses 
are one-sided, dimensionless.
The women cast no shadow. 

The smooth, blank ovals of their faces
    reflect the light. They could be
the same woman in different dresses
   or no woman in particular.

         They could belong to anyone,
     these women.

 Their summer dresses are 
            long, bright

               their bare arms long 
         in the long light. 

II.

    The light grows
       long in late summer, leans 
in the afternoons. 

    The long light slows time, that’s why 
           these women are here. 

    They could belong to anyone
these women. Their faces 
 are not forgotten but worn smooth 
from touching and touching again.

They have been lathed by years 
in the mind. 

The light changes
   what it touches, makes it
         different each time.

III.

How can I tell you
     about the light, except
that it’s where the women are?

    I can give you the words
      but not the light

         or the way it clasps
    the sides of the houses.

   I can’t come to your house 
       on a cold night, pour it 
         into your sleep.

      Just the women 
on the lawn, barefoot
       or sandalled, hands 
behind their heads
  or languid in their laps.

    I can give them to you
lying on the grass, dry 
at the end of summer, pricking
their bare arms. 

         They are counting
the feathered seeds 
        in the air, the blades 
of grass on the backs 
      of their necks.

Counting the days left 
in summer, the swallows
 in the almost-night sky.

     The mower a block over 
 shuts off, and there are insect noises,
      music from a passing car.
    
      The smell of cut grass, of the earth 
  opening itself 
              to their limbs. The light
     pours into them 
                    like breath.

They could belong to anyone, these women
                   on the lawn. It is the end 
of summer. The grass is dry. It will hold 
          their shape when their bodies are gone.

​Liz Hutchinson

​Liz Hutchinson is a writer and gardener living in the North Shore area of Massachusetts. Her first collection of poetry, Animalalia, is available online.