The Oven Bird

The Oven Bird is a favorite poem of mine, by Robert Frost. The poem inspired my painting, above. At the time that I did the painting, I had never seen or heard an oven bird, but I hope that I captured the poignant, haunting expressive quality of the poem. This is an excerpt from The Oven Bird, that I quoted on my home page...

"The bird would cease
       and be as other birds

But that he knows in singing
       not to sing.

The question that he frames
       in all but words

Is what to make
       of a diminished thing."

~ Robert Frost
 from The Oven Bird