1. As a child, I’d race after my siblings and watch as they’d scamper up trees.
2. I envied them their boundless bodies—I would try and fail, even when Henriette, Carolyn, or Ann would extend an arm down to me.
3. Nathaniel, especially, would brag about climbing branches, heaving himself up higher and higher just like Tarzan.
4. While they were chasing each other up trees, I strolled the woods alone,
5. stopping at tree after tree to wrap my arms around and squeeze
6. so hard that I swear the trees were hugging me back.
7. After the train took Nate’s boy and our father, a pack of dogs raced to the wreckage, but Allan got there first.
8. Did I thank him, hold him against my chest as if he were a tree?
9. Allan Lynch:
* One tree for the noose he hoisted up.
† One leafless branch to hold him breakless.
‡ Dangled there until someone hacksawed the rope.
§ I wasn’t there to catch him when he fell.
10. I wish I could paint without me existing—that just my hands were there.
11. No one blamed the sycamore.
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1. Meryman, Richard. Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life. HarperCollins, 1998, p. 176.
8. Panero, James, et al. “Andrew Wyeth Forever by James Panero.” The New Criterion, newcriterion.com/issues/2017/12/andrew-wyeth-forever.
8. § Jones, Victoria Emily. “Everlasting Joy Shall Be (Artful Devotion).” Art & Theology, 4 Jan. 2021, artandtheology.org/2019/12/10/everlasting-joy-shall-be-artful-devotion.
Janée J. Baugher is the author of the only craft book of its kind, The Ekphrastic Writer: Creating Art-Influenced Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction (McFarland, 2020). She’s an assistant editor at Boulevard magazine, has been a featured poet at the Library of Congress, and the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture awarded her a 2024–2025 CityArtist grant. For her third poetry collection, The Andrew Wyeth Chronicles, Baugher won Tupelo Press’s 2023 Dorset Prize (forthcoming in 2026).
