Last week, my “Literary Animal” workshop — can you tell that I really love this class? — left the classroom to take a field trip across the street to the museum. Our assignment: Wander through the hallowed halls and be inspired by an animal in a work of art. From there, we were to write something. Sounds easy enough, right? Sure, except that writing something good is hard, even if — especially if? — it includes some cute little monkey on a Chinese vase dated 610 B.C.
The class fanned out once we were inside. Where did I go? Straight downstairs to Decorative Arts, of course. I thought I might find a cool animal carved into an ash sideboard from 1802, or maybe some jade rabbit on a chair.
I found those and more. There are so many animals in the things we make and paint and carve. We live in a world with animals and they show up, let me tell you. It’s really neat when you go looking for something and realize it’s all around you all the time (e.g., love, generosity, cats, etc.) But though I found lots of animals, nothing stopped me in my tracks until I saw Winslow Homer’s “Croquet Scene,” painted in 1866.
And there’s no animal in it.
Why do we respond to art? Why is it that sometimes, something just clicks into place when we see a painting or hear a song or see a quilt at a show and sometimes, we get nothin’. When I turned my head and saw that painting, my heart and brain flooded with understanding, familiarity, and something close to kinship.
It’s the woman. Do you know what I thought when I saw her? I thought — and this is basically verbatim thought process, here — “She hates where she is. She loathes croquet. She wants to go home. She’s newly married and is alienated from the family she married into. She’s looking at a field mouse and she wishes she were him.”
The animal in the picture isn’t in the picture. But that little field mouse is real.
So I decided to write about that. I tried some prose but I hated it. I decided to do a poem. But what kind? My approach was to do research on the time period and see what sort of poems were popular in 1866 when this picture was painted. I’ll spare you details of the legwork, but I will tell you that Helen Hunt Jackson was a poet popular at that time and I found a one-verse poem by Jackson with a fascinating (read: hard) rhyme scheme: ABABBACBADDADAA.
I know, right?? The prose might’ve been easier in the end. But nope: I went for it, and I’m so glad I did. I really love this little poem, even though it will continue to be polished. I do feel that I captured my heroine’s black mood and her longing for a simpler life. Like, real simple. Field mouse simple. Don’t you feel that way, sometimes?
Ahem:
The Field Mouse
Inspired by Winslow Homer’s Croquet Scene, 1866.
(c) 2016 by Mary Fons
I’ve seen him twice, now, run past the ball
Near wicket three on th’ flattened grass
Of this scorching lawn. As we shift and stall
And wait for Ben to make his pass,
That nimble field mouse, cool and fast,
Dips through shade, finds waterfall;
I’d give my life to trade with him.
The petticoats and primers, yet another looking glass,
— Ben’s mother’s high tea protocol! —
Oh, for a tail and four silent feet
To streak as lightning through golden wheat
And leave behind this game and all
The family I must rise to meet.
We kings of beasts are mannered, tall—
But field mouse is free, if small.
Linda Taylor
Love it !
Heather
That’s awesome
Britiney
Love this.
Michelle
It’s a keeper ❤
Sharon
O my gosh, fabulous!!!
Colleen
I’ll never be able to look at that picture the same again! Well done!
Julie O
I love it! It brings a smile to my face. You have real talent, Mary.
Jeanann Montney
I so enjoy your imaginative view of life! Thank you for sharing with your readers.
Vera
Love your enthusiasm, Mary, and the innovation of an imagined animal. I’m pretty sure I could almost see it scurry across the field. Your poem gets an A+ from me.
Susie K
Lovely
Christina
Love it! Thanks for sharing the story of what inspired it.
kim
Wow! Love this!
deb hanahan
WOW – my first comment ever and I am a loyal reader- you are SOOOOO talented
Mary
Thank you all!! And I put it to you: Find an old poem you like, figure out what the rhyme scheme is (ABAB, etc.) and then write your own poem with that same rhyme scheme. It is fun, fun, fun. Why not? It’s Friday!
Susan Skuda
Touché!
Susan Skuda
Oh Mary, what good eyes you have!
‘I see nobody on the road,’ said Alice.
‘I only wish I had such eyes,’ the King remarked in a fretful tone. ‘To be able to see Nobody! And at the distance too! Why, it’s as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!’
-Lewis Carroll
carol ann mudek wojtowicz
very nice, I like it
Linda Shumway
you brought that field mouse to life. I used to play croquet 40 some years ago but never in the company of a mouse. Loved the thoughts you put in the newlyweds’ mind. Always have known you as creative, now you’ll be known as a writer and a creator of field mice!
J M
This is like a little Williamsburg. You wrote a new poem as restored antique. That’s kind of cool. I was afraid it might’ve been something like an ‘Ode To A Fieldmouse’. But it’s not – it’s all cold hearted fact and fun and now if only dear Mother-In-Law had a hawk on her shoulder… this poem also seems to have the dark little hope of Emily Dickinson wound up in it. Anyhow, have a good weekend Fons. ,Old Fat Man over and out…. (for some reason I just a CB radio flashback) Weird. Hasta
Ann Bailey
Love it – excellent!
Denise in PA
This is fabulous, Mary! Great job!
Mary Ann
Oh my! So very clever of you Mary. I am always so impressed by your story telling skills whether in a blog post or poem.
karen swann
At first glance, searching for the animal I thought you’d found, I chose to believe that Ben was bending over an adorable hedgehog, and the woman was just wishing he’d get back to the game so it would finally end. I prefer your version, though
The Sick Chicken. - Mary Fons
[…] you remember the last time we talked about Winslow Homer? I had so much to say about this painting. Those were good times, weren’t they? I could breathe back then. I could run and jump and […]