Poem Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBDEFG HIJKLMNNOPQRSTUVWX YZA2LHB2C2ND2 E2OOF2G2OH2I2 J2OYK2L2A2M2N2O2P2Q2 R2S2VT2M2M2OM2M2| About the size of an old style dollar bill | A |
| American or Canadian | B |
| mostly the same whites gray greens and steel grays | C |
| this little painting a sketch for a larger one | B |
| has never earned any money in its life | D |
| Useless and free it has spent seventy years | E |
| as a minor family relic handed along collaterally to owners | F |
| who looked at it sometimes or didn't bother to | G |
| - | |
| It must be Nova Scotia only there | H |
| does one see abled wooden houses | I |
| painted that awful shade of brown | J |
| The other houses the bits that show are white | K |
| Elm trees low hills a thin church steeple | L |
| that gray blue wisp or is it In the foreground | M |
| a water meadow with some tiny cows | N |
| two brushstrokes each but confidently cows | N |
| two minuscule white geese in the blue water | O |
| back to back feeding and a slanting stick | P |
| Up closer a wild iris white and yellow | Q |
| fresh squiggled from the tube | R |
| The air is fresh and cold cold early spring | S |
| clear as gray glass a half inch of blue sky | T |
| below the steel gray storm clouds | U |
| They were the artist's specialty | V |
| A specklike bird is flying to the left | W |
| Or is it a flyspeck looking like a bird | X |
| - | |
| Heavens I recognize the place I know it | Y |
| It's behind I can almost remember the farmer's name | Z |
| His barn backed on that meadow There it is | A2 |
| titanium white one dab The hint of steeple | L |
| filaments of brush hairs barely there | H |
| must be the Presbyterian church | B2 |
| Would that be Miss Gillespie's house | C2 |
| Those particular geese and cows | N |
| are naturally before my time | D2 |
| - | |
| A sketch done in an hour in one breath | E2 |
| once taken from a trunk and handed over | O |
| Would you like this I'll Probably never | O |
| have room to hang these things again | F2 |
| Your Uncle George no mine my Uncle George | G2 |
| he'd be your great uncle left them all with Mother | O |
| when he went back to England | H2 |
| You know he was quite famous an R A | I2 |
| - | |
| I never knew him We both knew this place | J2 |
| apparently this literal small backwater | O |
| looked at it long enough to memorize it | Y |
| our years apart How strange And it's still loved | K2 |
| or its memory is it must have changed a lot | L2 |
| Our visions coincided visions is | A2 |
| too serious a word our looks two looks | M2 |
| art copying from life and life itself | N2 |
| life and the memory of it so compressed | O2 |
| they've turned into each other Which is which | P2 |
| Life and the memory of it cramped | Q2 |
| dim on a piece of Bristol board | R2 |
| dim but how live how touching in detail | S2 |
| the little that we get for free | V |
| the little of our earthly trust Not much | T2 |
| About the size of our abidance | M2 |
| along with theirs the munching cows | M2 |
| the iris crisp and shivering the water | O |
| still standing from spring freshets | M2 |
| the yet to be dismantled elms the geese | M2 |
Elizabeth Bishop
(1)
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