It’s winter. Brittle, bitter days rattle the windowpanes and ice the driveways. In paintings though, there is no time nor change; there, the May winds linger still, and the fruit trees blossom in a perpetual spring. Today we take art and poetry up on their offer to whisk us away from winter, if only for a stolen minute or two.

As surely as George Inness, Winslow Homer, and Vincent van Gogh, German poet Rainer Maria Rilke believed in poetry’s powers of transformation. Beauty, Rilke felt, was so powerful a force that it could remake the world within the human soul. The following is from “Orchard,” Rilke’s series of poetic meditations on an orchard in spring. 

Orchard

It’s a poet’s privilege to speak for you, orchard.

To say Orchard, a word to lure honeybees,

a word that breathes & listens, and in its shining

hides ancient springs – full & invisible,
your syllables overflow, embracing everything.

George Inness, “Picking Apples”

Never was land more real
than in your branches; never was gold
more weightless than in the lace
of your shadows on the grass.

Your promise: anything heavy or hungry will give way to tenderness, like an endless path. 

Winslow Homer, “Girl Picking Apple Blossoms,” 1889

A silent fountain sleeps at your still
center: once she solved every riddle;
now she leaves them untold.

It’s Sunday – my day off,
though your work is far from over.
I think I could gaze up
through your branches forever…

Orchard, content to coax each apple
to fulfilment – they’ve learned
to trust your age-old instincts, how you
calmly regard their comings and goings.

Vincent van Gogh, The Flowering Orchard, 1888. Met, NYC

It’s magnificent, the order you maintain.
How the buds grow insistent in the twisted branches
until, delighted with their strength, they overflow in the silent air.

(Adapted from the German of Rainer Maria Rilke)

This spring there’s going to be a great opportunity to get out and paint among the trees at the 12th annual Plein Air Convention and Expo (PACE). The event is taking place this year at Lake Tahoe in Nevada. Hundreds of professional artists and plein air lovers will be there! Learn more here.