The ramshackled town falls quiet
to the artist’s eye in the retreating light.
The old houses will truce their aged lumber,
antiquity, for the invading dark beauty of his creation.

He lived here once as a boy, in the sadness of his angels,
held hostage (he thought), by the catechism of  church
and steeple, becoming  a refugee from sawdust and faith,
believing being an exile will open his eyes to the truth.

He had returned from his long sojourn in the East
after seeing and experiencing the freedom of the world,
determined to posses this tract, once green space,the mountain beyond— to surrender it all, to the truth he  knew.


The canvas submitted to his violence.  The brushes
knew again, the small wars between mind and nature.
The hunger, the hunger, the hunger of eternal creation  
that rises from the wanderlust in every artist and poet.    

He did not listen to their prayers for mercy.
He wailed in his starvation “Come! Come!”
The shades of town, mountain, flower, deer, came.
And, as he must, he destroyed and devoured it all.