Partly Paved, doubly illustrated by Joyce Shon and James B. Wheeler
The dynamic duo, Joyce Shon and James B. Wheeler, collaborated on this pair of illustration versions. I don't know which to prefer, so am posting both. If you have an inkling toward one or the other, please comment and let me know. Enjoy!
***
Partly paved
Where
the road stopped, an old train track,
half-lost,
crossed my trail's T. One way
pointed
into town. It struck me
that
I'd noticed the brown steel paved
into
3rd Street, the lot at Jack’s,
and
many spots where the railway
ran
before the brambles of town
grew
on it. The opposite ray
of
vanishing track bent around
an
overgrown, unbuilt hillock.
I
went that way. Threadbare green gowns,
dappled
silences, and old-time
ponderings
filled the afternoon
until
evening. Until the ties
stopped
their ladder steps where I'd strayed.
What
color were the northern skies
those
days when coffee cost a dime?
Likewise by Joyce Shon and James B. Wheeler |
For Partly Paved, I definitely prefer the more spare second picture rendering; that one seems more fitting to the feelings in the poem, which are the same ones I've had when seeing old paved over street car tracks and remembering "the old days when."
ReplyDeleteThis is a gorgeous poem Daniel - so beautiful. And I'm with Gerald here - I think the second, more spare feeling, illustration is the way to go.
ReplyDelete