Pine Barren Saints

SOLD

30” x 40”

Oil and gouache on panel

Not every forest is white in the winter

If the stands of the Pacific northwest

nearest the ocean

hemmed in with damp lonesomeness 

were ripped open for just a second

the gilded beam of that flood lamp

would find silver beetles and evergreen boughs

and mats of mosses thicker than carpet

and perhaps the spirits of the coldest season

waiting with the animals through it all

would be there too

holding them close as they slumber through the brackish nights

perhaps their shadows would be black as a raven

against the old old barks

those pine barren saints, statues in the dark

with heavy wings and hearts of oak