An email from a student

I received this email from a student in a literature course up at the University. My faculty exhibition had been on display earlier in the semester for about a month. I was wondering if anyone saw it.

This is nice.

Hello,

For one of our class assignments, we looked around the art gallery to try and find a poem, or art that inspired a poem. As I was looking, I was drawn to many of your pieces. They really helped to inspire my poem. The pieces I favored the most are “Destination Nowhere,” “Blackshire Barn,” “Stone Hill,” “13,” and “Trunks and Treeline.”  Thank you so much for making this beautiful art that inspired my poem!

Best,

Sydney

The Poem:

A Day at the Art Gallery

So many paintings make me question… “Have I been here before” – at the crossroad, in that open field. Have I leaned my head against that brick gate and dreamed of another life? I look at Stone Hill and see a life that I am missing, a life I crave, a life I need. I long for the places I see in the paintings. As I stand in front of them, swaying slightly, I am no longer in the art gallery; I am in the painting. My family used to say I have an overactive imagination, but I would argue that it is just active enough. It doesn’t take much for me to travel to a new place, a beautiful painting, and all of a sudden, I stand in front of the door, with the 13 above it, raising my hand to use the knocker. A cough makes me turn my head, and I am back in the art gallery on a field trip with my class, but I will never forget the places the painting took me to.