Journeys

Five poems inspired by Walter Anderson

These poems are part of a larger group of poems centered on the life, art, and writings of Walter Anderson, a Mississippi Gulf Coast artist who died in 1965. They are not intended as interpretations of Anderson’s watercolors, oils, or pen and ink drawings, or re-renderings in a paint-by-word way. While Anderson’s art, eye, and energy may fill these poems, they exist as an independent narrative.

The accompanying illustrations are small line drawings from notebooks that Walter Anderson carried with him on Horn Island. These immediate and spontaneous impressions contain the bones for his larger body of work. They have never before been published.

The Chinese Word for Home

The morning cry of wakening birdsseems an accusation. Sunlight stillweighs on my shoulders: a single truthfound in a simple answer.Willows along the bank lean awaywithout the wind’s aid.The field seeks the irony of its horizon.What clouds there arehave drawn themselves into dancersand circle the sky on the shouldersof a green mountain. I’m alive to witnessthis image making without boundaries.As I sit and watch the sununtangle itself from a nest of trees,I think about the Chineseword for bamboo. It meansto laugh: when bamboo feels the windit leans back, gently, like a manwho laughs. But I’m a strangerin a land where language bendsmy ear without taking shape.What I say to myself as I walkor to the birds may be laughable,but as long as there is light to seeI will look and listen;I might even sing. Who knows,tomorrow I may laugh or dance.

Walter Anderson (1903-1965). Pencil on paper. Private collection (sb124p29).

Used by permission of Mary Anderson Pickard.

Hermit without a Cave

It’s not that he’s invisible or thinksI can’t see him beneath the waves.He tumbles up on the beach,graceless but somehow dignified.And reaches for me as I reach for him.Surprised I will not let gohe tightens his hold on my thumb;and all the way back to campwe wage a battle of wills.Who will. Who won’t.Which of us will let go first.Who will cry out.We negotiate a trucein a bucket of water.Little philosopher I call him.Prophet of light and shadow.Ambassador of the bay.Always looking at what surrounds him.Always leaving one world for another.

Walter Anderson (1903-1965). Pencil on paper. Private collection (sb99p28).

Used by permission of Mary Anderson Pickard.

Leif

You were to have been a boy, an explorerlike myself. I would show youthe world I’d found, the islandswhere daylight burns like heartpine.But when you were born and Sissy saidyou were a girl, I knew Leif would still beyour name. I knew that would be enough.

The treefrogs begin their early evensong.Though the words repeat, and growlouder, we listen as they call us.Green. Green. A pale lavender skyand the sun appear as we sit. The firstblooms have come out in the horse chestnut.The hummingbirds won’t be far behind.

We watch two ducks riding the wavesand envy the ease of their grace.The south wind still chills but the sun warmsand fills the trees with new form.It fills the silence between us,an island without sanctuary. If I speakit is because I have just been bittenby the first hungry creature of spring.

Walter Anderson (1903-1965). Hummingbirds. Pencil on paper. Private collection (sb25p31).

Used by permission of Mary Anderson Pickard.

Lesser Scaup

What purpose remainsin this small, dark body?The black and white zig-zagon his back? What use nowthe broken wing?He ate the minnows I caught,liked rice, but, like...