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At the Ready
—Distant Thunder, Andrew Wyeth (USA), 1961
The coming storm won’t let young Rattler lie
asleep, but he’s not ready yet to wake
her up. It’s quiet now but the pale sky
is turning gray. He squints his eyes to take
the whole horizon in. Her coffee cup,
binoculars, and ripe blueberries rest
in the tall grass. No longer just a pup,
he promises himself to do his best
not to exaggerate the risk they face
since it’s perhaps another false alarm
but stay alert should it become a race
against a storm, protecting her from harm.
Beneath her floppy hat and looming trees,
she sleeps while he hears thunder in the breeze.
.
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Carl Kinsky is a country lawyer living in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri.
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Carl, I like the unpacking of the painting’s details in the second stanza, and the off-handed revelation in that 7th line, in case the reader hasn’t noticed yet, that the observer in the poem is the puppy. And that last line wraps things up nicely!
A nice interpretation of Wyeth’s painting!
Yu admirably catch the sense of quiet but uneasy anticipation W’s painting conveys. A 2nd poem might take notice of that weird, spiky conifer behind the subject.