Two Poems, by Barbara Lydecker Crane

Niagara, by Frederic Edwin Church (USA) 1857

​Taking the Dare

Niagara seemed to dare me: make your mark
with a giant panorama of the Falls.
And so I tackled that terrifying arc,
sketching just behind the viewing wall
its crashing rush, its plumes of towering spray.
That day, as water thundered, the day grew late;
the sky, cloud-streaked in puce and smoky gray,
added drama. Studio weeks would wait.

I added a rainbow so realistically
that critics thought it was reflected from
the window of the New York gallery
where for two weeks my finished artwork hung;
one hundred thousand people paid to see it.
I had succeeded. Niagara guaranteed it.

Landscape with Rainbow, by Robert Duncanson (USA) 1859

Amid this Rising Strife
​
I’ve heard that Mr. Church
now has a picture twice as wide
with a beguiling, come-and-go rainbow.
But mine, they say, has a stronger glow.
And though I have no wish to chide,
nor any wish to besmirch

that rich New York White man
(my racial heritage is mixed),
my rainbow here is representing hope
for peace. Isn’t that of greater scope
than an artful trick of light betwixt
that artist’s sky and land?

War is always brutal.
The rainbow is my last-ditch prayer
that civil strife will somehow be averted.
I compose a scene where land’s converted
to peaceful pastures; all is fair.
It’s only art. It’s futile.

. . . except it’s only art
that builds a bit of self-respect, 
feeds my children and my very soul. 
It’s the one part of my life I can control.
Right now I count on one effect:
art calms my anxious heart. 

Barbara Lydecker Crane

Barbara Lydecker Crane's most recent book is Art and Soul, Kelsay Books.Amid this Rising Strife