I wipe the flies, dust, sand from paintings crossing the heath, The canvas changes, changes with the day progressing, as do my figures who exist
and do not pose. Velasquez now,
painted non-existent models. He
never drudged like me to show
a woman digging carrots, sowing,
or placing a kettle over a fire.
Millet painted peasants bending,
academies do not teach such subjects,
they censure speed and incorrection
but I who paint these people's labour
make incorrectness truth.
Michelangelo and Rembrandt,
Hals and Ruisdael painted quickly.
Their hands like mine have worked
on nature as my figures work,
stoop to labour, strong, enduring,
play, too, hold cards around a table
with knarled and caloused fingers,
handle jacks with kings and queens
as the paint grips and they grip tools.
Outdoors they survey no landscape.
They are grounded, look down at earth,
summer, winter, sun and snow,
crooked and creaking like old thorn trees,
they do not seek similitudes
within their sickle's compass. No,
no straightening to look at landscapes
but they can rest a while among the sheaves
before the gathering deep blue storm.
Crows bend and startle above swirling wheat
and along the darkening curving path
the workers make for cottage thatch.
Indoors a peasant in heavy boots
spreads wide huge hands in question,
an old woman peers from a dark brown shawl.
out of a creamy pleasant ground, however,
the Arlesienne greets us with a smile,
a child takes first steps in a garden,
two reapers sleep serene upon the corn.
©Terry Hodgson2020
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