To Burchfield, by Theresa Wyatt

The Four Seasons, by Charles Burchfield (USA) 1949-1960

​To Burchfield
 
In myth making hyper yellow
black marks inhabit all space,
fly through charged layers 
of birdsong.
 
You understood this music,
sometimes sad staccato of limbs
and leaves flowing from loaded brush.
 
However you chose to order, set free,
this eerie benediction of dark and light
where sun is moon and moon is sun,
 
your shadow lands 
speak to us of solitudes 
immense.
 
You make me feel my mental roamings
are not wasted walks through rain,
for I am with winter shoved aside
both calm and fretful here.
 
Did you sleepwalk murky woods in trance,
burn down low the broken wish bone branch,
firebug the slow red scorch?
 
Did you freeze frame birds below the sun
just long enough to have us reach
and grab a wing?
 
You gift us glorious with stones mysterious
imbedded in your shoes, waves circling
your feet, arrowheads everywhere.

Theresa Wyatt

This poem first appeared in Beyond Bones.

Theresa Wyatt is the author of the historical poem collection Hurled Into Gettysburg, (BlazeVOX), 2018. Her poems have recently appeared in New Flash Fiction Review, New Micro (W.W. Norton & Co.) 2018, The Healing Muse, Spillway and The Medical Literary Messenger. A former visual artist and teacher for the New York State Department of Corrections, Theresa resides near Buffalo, New York.