Carol's Watercolor and a Poem

Mother painted a watercolor of the farm buildings in 1948, a drive-through corn crib, the dairy barn and silo, part of the old milkhouse, when she was dating Dad. She was attending Milwaukee State Teachers College, now UWM, and had been accepted at Layton School of Art and Design, closed in 1974.  She married her high school sweetheart in 1949 and never attended art school. The scene is done on mat board, and while I know she struggled with perspective and color, the little painting captures the scene as I remember it.

Let Evening Come
Jane Kenyon

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.