Josteen Yazzi said the Critic should ask his thought

on the matter of great art and literature

What do you know of art and literature, Uncle?

Nothing, he said, I think about what I do not know.

I do not know why people don't like Norman Rockwell.

Norman Rockwell painted the American Dream,
with Indians in it, some times.

I like Norman Rockwell because I know how he felt.
I saw my people live in a good world that vanished.

Magic or other wise, I remember mine,
the way
when I see
Mr. Rockwell's America as he imagined
he had seen it.

Or maybe he painted
what you should have been able to see,
but for wars and Spanish Flu and cattle barons
and reaping machines and steam and electricity.

Olaf Wieghorst coulda painted America ugly, too.
But he didn't.

Literature. I have nothing left to say, Norman Rockwell, maybe he needed a mentioning for some
reader anchored reason.

We have to deal with that more these days.
People with big old dish antennae out there,
rusting after Direct TV got a satellite to see the res,

Some o'the kids build a radio telescope, outa them three meter models,
so we are connected.

Norman Rockwell painted the Peaceful Kingdom,
just like Mr. Hicks and Mr. Kincaid,

not mr klee or mr picaso, they could image hell.
My ma liked That drippy guy, said she could see the swing of things in he's paintings, What's-isname,

Jackson, damshame, Jackson Pollak right?

but the message is in the medium, that's what my Shicheii yoosto say. Art must sing.
So I can play my drum. And she can dance.
When we think nothing about it.

I want to live in a Norman Rockwell painting
Where I'm surrounded by the simple times
If you don't know what I mean let me explain it
It consists of front porch swings and Mom's apple pie

Sunday afternoons in Grandma's kitchen
Lazy fishing days down by the lake
Or in a Soda Shop drinking Chocolate Malts with cherries on top
As I while away the day Norman's way

Riding bikes down hills the whole time laughing
Cowboys, Indians, and Pirates all in one day
With sunsets painted red and no strangers met
No secrets kept to wanna give away

Life on parade the American way
Pride in your family and friends
Helping each other no matter race, creed, or color
Starting each meal out with an amen

Picnics at the park, hot dogs and gaming
Potato sack and three-legged racing
Nothing like today's grind taxing both the heart and mind
Which to me desperately needs replacing
With life in a Norman Rockwell painting

There’s a silverback haze
on the shallow face
of the Rockwell Ridge
folded brow
puzzled chin
and dark hollow eyes
keeping watch
over the lilies
and crane flies
and will of the wisp

Rust brown ravens
and fisher kings
delight
in the reeds off north bend
(chased by the terraced streams!)
youth blades engrain
on the favoured
and historic
Banka Memorial

Mustard
and pumpkin skies
are clipped
by a call from
the resident loon
the sounds of Buddha Bar
piercing the silence
and shaping the afternoon chord

It’s a time to make way (stream side)
seems the anuran are courting