by Cynthia Yatchman
Joan Miro’s Catalan Landscape (The Hunter)
Miro’s hunter can walk his landscape
with enough serenity to smoke his pipe
because his world is abundant with life:
birds, snakes, deer, and fish sufficient to take
and feed whoever is waiting at home.
So this chore is a pleasure too. He’ll bring
back dinner, but now he can take time to think
the long thoughts he has when his mind can roam.
Miro’s hunter has figured it out, of course,
not to live a simple life. No one does.
He understands what is real and what is not.
Food is real. The deer he stalks, his horse,
his wife, his kids, the way the sky changes
color, how right now at dawn it turns butterscotch.
John Brantingham was Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks’ first poet laureate. His work has been featured in hundreds of magazines. He has nineteen books of poetry and fiction includinghis latest, Life: Orange to Pear (Bamboo Dart Press). He lives in Jamestown, New York in the United States.
Cynthia Yatchman is a Seattle based artist and art instructor. A former ceramicist, she received her B.F.A. in painting (UW). She switched from 3D to 2D and has remained there ever since. She works primarily on paintings, prints and collages. Her art is housed in numerous public and private collections. She has exhibited on both coasts, extensively in the Northwest, including shows at Seattle University, SPU, Shoreline Community College, the Tacoma and Seattle Convention Centers and the Pacific Science Center. She is a member of the Seattle Print Art Association and COCA (Center of Contemporary Art). Instagram: Cynthia Yatchman Art.