Page 70 - WTP Vol. XI #2

Earthquakes (continued from preceding page)
Miss Tyler, our librarian, treated that summer’s stranger well, but then she treated everybody well. She reminded us of Cinderella’s fairy god- mother in the Disney film. She may well have known more than we did about this fellow, but she never said a word.
Our friend Walt was clearly Miss Tyler’s pet, though his only difference from us was how well he could draw, which he did more than he read. When he did take down a book, it was always one about artists he claimed were famous, with reproduc- tions of their work. He showed me a drawing one day by someone named Schiele, asking if it didn’t depict agony in an extraordinary way. I agreed. I wanted to go along with Walt, though the sketch struck me as ugly.
Walt noticed things. For example, he was the first of us to mention how often the stranger scratched and rubbed at himself, especially at his neck. When he did, we saw marks like bug bites on every knuckle and both his wrists.
Who cared? He cared about us and we were glad we’d met him.
Every time he spoke of the woman in his novel, his eyes got wet, which intrigued us, although it also
put us a little on edge. We didn’t really know how to respond to that display, but he didn’t seem to demand a response; he’d quickly start talking again.
“Oh, the gifts she had!” he’d sigh. “Why on earth would she waste them?” It was just as if he were de- scribing someone he actually knew.
Just before he vanished, he advised us to do some- thing useful with our lives.
We all did, to one degree or another—except for poor Walt, who, after half year at art school in Rhode Island, died drugged and alone one Philadelphia win- ter, having dropped out of art school in Rhode Island. We’d all lost touch with him, but still we were sad when we heard. What a waste, we thought. He was
so gifted.
A former Pulitzer finalist and winner of the Poets’ Prize, Lea served
as founding editor of New England Review and was Vermont’s Poet Laureate from 2011 to 2015. He is the author of twenty-three books, including Seen from All Sides: Lyric and Everyday Life, essays (Green Writers Press, VT), and Here, poetry (Four Way Books, NYC). In 2021, he was presented with his home state of Vermont’s most pres- tigious artist’s distinction: the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. His new poetry collection (What Shines?, Four Way Books) will be published early this year.
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Under The Polar Sky
oil on canvas 31.5'' x 39.4''
By Alexey Adonin