WHITE MOUNTAIN ART
The artists stayed in grand hotels
Leaving in payment for their keep
Saleable oils or watercolors
Where light flickers through lacy leaves
Bounces off rocks and sheep or cows
Gleams on waterfalls and soars
All unconfined to the mountaintops.
Always something catches the eye
In the foreground – a red coat or a dog.
The trees are finely drawn and shadowed.
You can tell weather by the clouds
In skies of varied blues and grays.
These pictures are easy to live with.
Small as postcards or too big to hang
On parlor walls, they hide themselves
Murky with dust in farmhouse auctions.
Today we point the lens at the mountain:
Snow flocks the firs on high ridges.
The alabaster peaks are carved
Chrystal sharp by the cold blue air.
Among the hardwoods a smoldering fire
Of fall foliage lingers – beech,
Birch and the last of the sugar maples.
Catching the eye in the foreground, framed
By telephone poles, lettered in gold
Is the sign of the Up Country Saloon.
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