No Poetry On The Brandywine

NO POETRY ON THE BRANDYWINE D. Lewandowski Guerra ©2009 All Rights Reserved

I claim the olden Brandywine had rarely watered verse. In growing Schoonover and Pyle it spawned a writers' curse. The school that raised the Wyeth clan, and gathered painters in, Had little care for versifiers, less for poets' din. These illustrators limned the tales outsiders first would write For eyes that read and then took in an image with delight. Such commerce-ship of word and art, an enterprise done well, Sailed strong out from the Brandywine, with business nonpareil. Perhaps its parlance well-distilled, the Quaker mode of speech Lent little stock to lyricism. What virtue could it teach? The simple and the practical, not gaudy nor too proud, Let voices die before they swelled. What if one sung too loud? The city on the Brandywine is rich and rich men made, But poverty now marks her speech for poets are not paid.