Song to Creation – Land by Lloyd Rees

Song to Creation – Land 

by Lloyd Rees

I used to own a large print of this painting,

a very good quality print, bought for I think

$70 – back when $70 meant something,

I guess five decades ago. We had it framed

beautifully, in slim white wood with pale blue

barely-there striations (matching, you see, 

the work; unobtrusively, not detracting).

I loved seeing it just inside our front door,

looking as if it was catching the light – 

the light that was in the painting, shining 

not on it but from it. It told me of so many

Tasmanian summers – though it could be

up around Sydney. Anyway, the critics agree

it might be almost anywhere in Australia. 

It could never be anywhere but Australia.

It’s the quality of our light. ‘A suffused glow’

reviewers point out, ‘shadeless … evenly lit … 

and an open sky.’ As if we here need telling.

It’s the light of joy, the air of the carefree,

the memory of idyllic childhoods where 

always we play in water, be it river or beach.

I dare say our kids would see that painting

and think at once of their own childhood

where it hung and shone at the entrance

to home – not only for what it depicts

but the painting itself (I mean print).

But childhood ended, parents parted

and the home was sold long ago.

Where is this now? I no longer know 

what became of most of my pictures, the ones

I couldn’t take with me. Some went with him, 

a few came with me, others were given

to friends, to op-shops … yet I am thankful

I’ve always held, in my mind’s clear eye, 

this painting of home, of rapturous light.

Image: Fair Use. (Found here.)

Prompt 18  for the 2021 April Poem a Day challenge at Poetic Asides  is to write an ekphrastic poem, i.e. based on another work of art. It was left up to us to choose our own artwork, so I thought of my favourite Australian painters, of whom Lloyd Rees is one, and when I was hunting for an image to use, I found this, which has so much meaning for me.

Sharing, some weeks later, with Poets and Storytellers United for Writers' Pantry #74.