What Wyeth Didn't Caption

They call it longing, the way she's turned“toward the house like a woman who just needs“to want something enough to make the distance“collapse. I call it math. I call it the exact“calculation of how many inches of grass“a body can cross before the asking-for-help“costs more than the crossing does. I've done“that math myself, on a good day, at the mailbox.“Nobody paints you reaching for your cane.“They paint you reaching for the house instead,“the long gold field standing in for all“the unglamorous mechanics of a body“doing what a body actually does:“deciding, again, today, to go the distance,“on its own terms, in its own particular time.“