Leafy and leafless giants
Loom beneath
Wandering shafts of light to
Illumine
Cavernous crevasses.
Darkened by our verbosity,
An afternoon of pomposity
Is a kindred thing.
We can talk clear out here on this ledge if you feel like it or,
If you’d rather,
We can talk
On a red chalk bluff way out West.
This land is
Far too perfect
Far too ours
Far too expansive
To interrupt our kindred
Conversation.
This is a poem inspired by the 1849 painting Kindred Spirits by Asher B. Durand.
My poem imagines the conversation between the two men standing on the bluff, naturalist and poet William Cullen Bryant and Hudson River School founder Thomas Cole. Durand painted the work to memorialize Cole, who had recently passed away.
For more about Kindred Spirits, watch this video from Crystal Bridges of American Art. To read my post on Medium about Crystal Bridges, read here.
Thanks for reading!
Marilyn Yung 