Once upon a time there was a museum in the Berkshires
where children could marvel at Calder’s toys and mobiles,
where children could espy the Valley of the Santa Ysabel,
where children could stand in awe of Giant Redwoods of California,
where children could peer through the windows of Shuffleton’s Barber Shop.
Today, there’s an Art Hole in the Berkshires, where grownups,
who’d already let GE convert the Housatonic into a river of poison, have converted
Great Works of Art into checks payable to former children – former meanies, former stealers, former liars, former cheaters who now work as bankers, lawyers, planners, and news mongers, and who know that children neither hire, subscribe, nor underwrite.
paintings by Frederic Edwin Church, Albert Bierstadt, Norman Rockwell
by Dave Conlin Read