The Stafford Challenge, Day 32

Today, another ekphrastic poem on Grant Wood's painting Spring in the Country (1941, his final year), a companion piece to his Spring in Town that I wrote on about three weeks ago here. My usual curtal sonnet, in full rhyme this time except for the last word, with ten-syllable lines. Childhood Memory After Spring in the Country by Grant Wood (1941) Fluffy white clouds are ranged in rank and file, like the puffy plants the boy — Grant himself — is sowing, life regimented by spring arriving as the earth itself turns. While the mother digs holes in the soil, herself a sturdy twin to the white tree standing behind, the father is steering a team of horses, hard going to this high shelf. Grant’s boyish world: stolid mom, commanding dad, lush dark Iowa soil, headstrong dreams                                             of spring, always young. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Grant Wood, Spring in the Country (1941) Click here to read my previous poem on Spring in Town, the companion piece to this painting. Might be fun to compare the two paintings and the two poems. Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Ingat, everyone.  ヅ