'Walking inside a Grahame Sydney painting' - Diane Brown

That uninterrupted blue, then the mountains, snow
rapidly disappearing on this first real day of summer
and closer, another range, lower and crouching, shadows
draped over brown hides, and in the foreground, fields
wheat-coloured, rolling, legendary as the sky. Inside,

the sun stalks the angle of the dormer window, bleaching
clothes thrown not artfully enough on a chair. My lover
and I are writers, after all, and careless of  fabrics and folds.
I tell Grahame I’d use this but I’m not sure how
my poems are usually peopled, crowded with conversations

and this view is too large to contain in words.
Upstairs, windows divide the landscape into bite-sized
chunks. Perhaps if I take it one line at a time?
Already I notice I’ve forgotten three power poles
sprouting in the paddocks opposite. Lines I can’t see

but can imagine, ushering in the rest of the world.

- Diane Brown -

                                           

Hat tip to Home Paddock for the poetry, from Brown's 2004 collection learning to lie together -- and for the brief biographical note on Diane Brown.

Image above is Sydney's 'Fiddler's Flat,' available (as a print) at NZ Prints.  And don't forget to check out Grahame Sydney's website.