goldengroves

goldengroves unleaving

11x14
oil on linen

$700

 

currently on a home trial with a private collector

Named after one of the few poems I had to memorize for school,
by Gerard Manley Hopkins. It is still one of my touchstones.

Spring and Fall:
To a young child

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.