Conewago Tide

2002

12" X 17"

Oil on Panel

SOLD

My stepfather Fred Decker was the kind of man
who could tease a smile out of walnut tree.
Or maybe what I mean to say is that he found some way
to tease a smile out of me when, on one ridiculously hot
Halloween weekend, I nearly dropped the walnut tree
I was cutting down for chairmaking wood right onto
the corner of his 200 year old stone kitchen.
I loved him for that.
Among many other things.

When he lay in the bed on the sunporch,
fighting to stay on this planet for one more day,
one of his most delightful morphine
induced hallucinations was seeing hawks. Dozens of them soaring around.
In the wake of his passing they now follow my mother.
Or lead her at times.
Always near and sometimes smiling.

So it is that on our favorite walk
down along the railroad tracks by the elementary school
Gulliver and I are often governed by a pair of hawks.
Not every day.
Just when we need them.

I have been painting in my studio late into every night for months now
preparing for upcoming shows.
Holed up in my alabaster chamber and hunched over from concentrating on the details.
So when the heat wave broke this afternoon we decided to take a family walk
Herself and Gully and I and a cloud filled blue sky.
Down the hill from the schoolyard,
past the three old grave stones,
through the swampy drainage from the marsh,
and winding our way along the train tracks,
standing straight up out of the grass before us,
just as perfect and crisp as a freshly ironed Irish linen shirt…
a hawk feather.

I brought it home and painted it on my Martha’s Vineyard beach
with some of the other gifts he has brought me.
Hallowed ground.
Thanks Pops.