Steve Berman Potery

In the Wyeth Museum – Rockland Maine

Here is a man stretched out in a dory.
The sea is calm.
He’s lying on his back.
He would be looking up at the pale sky
except his eyes are closed.
either In sleep or death
Either way he’s utterly at peace.
By his looks
I’d say he was a Swede
so there’s an echo of the old ship burials
though here no flames, only the quiet ocean.

The painting vivid in the way of dreams
that are more alive
than the world we wake to.
All this with with just a bit of pigment
infused in eggyolk and then
drybrushed on a board.

It’s not the only dory Wyeth painted.
Something about the lines
must have drawn the artist’s eye.
He could have gone for drama,
the scant few boards that lie
between the doryman and the deep.
But there is nothing of that here.
Instead – a dream of death that’s so serene
as to be comforting. A dream
of floating calmly, rocking softly,
softly, so as not to wake the dreamer.