Maine

Maine

1. The Exhibit

Not since my uncle gave us a one hundred dollar gift certificate
for Filenes of Boston for our wedding
have I had this sense of being a discerning shopper
choosing among so many quality things.

“Twelve of you may each choose a painting to write about.”
At Filenes. I had ogled the things no one buys any more –
china and silver, mohair and linen – with two thoughts in mind:
“I could buy that!” and
“I don’t have to!”

Downstairs from donors sharing champagne and shrimp,
I could choose what I liked best,
me,
amid the exotic temples and azure skies,
paintings in water color, pencil and wax
of places so much more substantial,
mountains and oceans, sea and sky,
places I never had been.
A dizzying gift.

In a humble corridor, narrow walls were hung
with glimpses of Maine, a different sort of place
that I also had never been to.

Here were no jewel tones, no azure skies, no piercing sun.
The trees defied color and even shape.
Grey and white clouds with ocher shadows
copied the outline of the landscape
above the stony shores
in skies that attempted to be blue,
and fought being brown.

I tried to walk past one painting,
but had to stop.
“That.”
That was the piece I was missing.

2. The Painting

This was the place that my grandmother left.
Mother of twelve, grandmother of forty,
porcelain skin concealing flint,
humble smile disguising brains;
She gave us this without us even knowing.

I thought she had chosen Boston, had left Maine because
it was ugly, or dull, or boring, or poor.
When I saw the painting, I realized she left
because she was ready.
The place had formed and informed her.
And she had infused us, in turn.

This strangely familiar unknown place is mine.
I do not know the name for the colors of the rocks,
but I have seen each of my aunts wear them.
The shaggy trees are the kind that each of us plants,
because they surrounded the house we loved.
You cannot put a blanket on those stones,
nor would we want to. We seek out seas
like these for contemplation, not for sport.
We want our water cold.

Swimming, then, becomes an act of prayer.
We throw ourselves on something big
and trust it to support us as we part it and kick,
part it and kick, until the sand is no more with us.
Then we float, belly to the sky of muted grays and blues.
Our eyes come in these colors. Like into like,
we stare and wait for answers
and the questions they create.

This painting, though, has no one on the shore –
no bird on any tree, no fish, no crab;
a birdless sky, no crafts float in the sea.
It is waiting for the viewer
to come, fill the seascape,
just as the seascape waits
to fill the watcher.

(c) Ann McLellan Lardas
Stratford, CT 2017