Two of Lewis’ poems inspired this painting:
Fossil, 1919
“I found a little ancient fern
Closed in a reddish shale concretion,
As neatly and a charmingly set in
As my grandmother’s face
In a round apricot velvet case. “
Fossil, 1975
“Changed and not changed. Three million years.
This sunlight-summoned little fern
Closed in a cenotaph of silt
Lies in my hand, secret and safe.
In quiet dark transformed to stone,
Cell after cell to crystal grown,
The pattern stays, the substance gone….
Changed and not changed. The spirit hears
In drifting fern the morning air.”
