Field Corn

  If you walk into the Crow Angel painting and head up into the field following Gulliver’s path, along the tree line and to the top of the hill, there is a tractor path at the farthest corner. That path leads to a second set of fields which the hawks guard from their perch on the electric tower right in the middle of 20 acres..
We have walked there a thousand times in search of the peace and solitude of the hidden haven of flora and fauna. Watching and waiting as the corn sprouted and grew in the summer sun, I wanted to better understand that crop which is so much a part of my Pennsylvania neighborhood and the most anticipated taste of the season. So, late on a September afternoon, I yanked the most interesting looking stalk out of the ground. Gully guarded it all the way home and resigned herself in a huff when it was carefully positioned and lighted in the studio and made clear to her that it was definitely not an overgrown fetching stick.
After over a hundred hours of scrutiny the majesty of this simple stalk became breathtaking.
I rediscovered a Carl Sandburg poem from my very early childhood which captures the wonder I found in the act of painting that spear of corn and the mystery that I go in search of each time Gully and I head up into the fields. (Lines from which are carved in the frame surrounding the painting).

Corn Prattlings by Carl Sandburg

The wind came across the corn laughing
It was late in summer, the limit of summer,
The deadline of early fall time,
And the wind in the laughing corn,
The wind came across.

The wind ran on the tops of the corntassels,
And the pointed long leaves hung over,
Hands obedient to the wind.
And the wind ran once and again for each leaf,
Each pointed long leaf, the wind sang running
Across the corntassels and leaves of corn.

There is a floor the corn grows on,
The roots of the corn go under and twist and hold.
The trunk of the corn stands over the floor.
The leaf and the corntassel signal our winds
And take notice of the path of the sun.

The ears laugh in the husks now.
The big job of the year is done.
It’s all over again ’till next year.
Up over the wandering pumpkin stems,
The yellow and gold kernels laugh.
The big job is over and the laugh of the yellow ears
And the laugh of the running wind go together.
They come across together now late, late, in summer
Early in the fall time of the corntassels.