Consider the Other Kingdoms
36” x 60”, oil paint and mixed media on canvas
I often get my titles from poetry. Mary Oliver is one of my favorite poets. I struggled to find a title for this piece and this morning while thinking about it I picked up one of her books and opened it at random. Here is the poem I found:
The Other Kingdoms
Consider the other kingdoms. The
trees for example, with their mellow-sounding
titles: oak, aspen, willow.
Or the snow, for which the peoples of the north
have dozens of words to describe its
different arrivals. Or the creatures, with their
thick fur, their shy and wordless gaze. Their
infallible sense of what their lives
are meant to be. Thus the world
grows rich, grows wild, and you too,
grow rich, grow sweetly wild, as you too
were born to be.
Mary Oliver
from “The Truro Bear”, Beacon Press 2008