POETRY

City Dreams

Reflections on a painting

Ramón Frade, Paisaje Campestre, 1946, oil on canvas, 17 in. × 12 3/4 in. (43.2 × 32.4 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Rafael and Maria Garces in honor of Ubaldo and Ines Soto, 2021.90

The man tends the land.
On the land sprouts fields of green
that stretch all the way to where the earth kisses the sky.

The cow feeds on the grass —
bathes in the pastures of tender sunlight.
Each morning, the man gathers his strength
from a glass of milk and a golden orange,
and together they walk to the patches of food under their gentle care.

The man whistles a tune the cow finds quite agreeable.
The cow keeps the man company, which he too finds quite agreeable.

Sweat pours from the man’s brow.
The heat of midday carries it to the sky, and the clouds find that rather agreeable. The rain empties down a promise of new and perpetual life.

The man looks up at the sky — allows his weight to balance on the rake.
The cow walks up beside him, both standing before their humble shack,
and beyond that shack the grassy fields.

Draped over them gleams a triple rainbow,
stretching all the way to where the sky kisses the earth.

How lucky we are, the man thinks to himself.
How lucky indeed, I think to myself.