“As promised, the illustrious Mrs. Woosnam,” claims the patron, her great-grandson, grandly ushering. She enters, garbed in a proud, violet gown, her gait, somewhat unsteady and wrong, like worn, bleached wood that’s been afloat too long, that now I’ve found on this foreign land. And around she brings her island’s home, Wales, dragging its proud veil, affixed like a net in tow.  Her presence bends the New  World back ’til it succumbs. Elbow gently mugged by the young man’s dutiful hand, she’s sat down, put in a chair in the good light.

He whispers, “Paint her young. It’s a gift. Don’t bother chatting. Doesn’t know a word of English.” He turns and speaks her native tongue; a wild strangeness he domesticates with,”Mum”. She nods,  smiling, and lets him kiss an ashen hand, then holds his, tight at first, as if she won’t let go. The feather falls, the moment’s warmed.

Now alone, I turn my canvas to her still frame and the easel legs scrape, resounding, confounding the awkward day Now follows smiles and blushes and quickly on to choosing paints, brushes… So I’m gazing, mixing, dabbing at the pallet… Paining for some momentum and hours later, still not painting. I look to her. I’m searching and I can see the light has plait parched lines across her arms that press deeper down the hour hand. Light pervades the icy blue globe of her farthest eye that must want to squint to see the street below or look inward or want to sleep or so I imagine her. The neatly up-swept crown is haloed with a disarray of fine, white hair, counterweight by sulky shadows in the standing hollows of the nape below. That sweet face that must have once held charm. Nothing smooth now but all fair. Just as I am to press my brush down, I despair and want to speak but she’s been wise. She knows English. I don’t know Welsh. I’m no Brit, no need to gloat, but I’m American. My television has never once mentioned her home. What do I know? I cannot know the stubborn place of root there. She comes and sits politely for her grandson in silent testament but can’t expect much from a blind, American painter, this inviolate Welshman, Mrs. Woosnam.

[Author's note: inspired by,"A Welsh Testament" by by R. S. Thomas and "Christina's World" by Andrew Wyeth (July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009).]