He bore the most valued professional initials after his name, M.D.. Yet Dr. William Carlos Williams valued poetry as much as he did his medical training & composed some of the finest poems of the 20th century. 

   In 1923 he assembled fourteen words in what became one of his best known & best loved pieces. The poem was life changing when I read it in college. Dr. Williams proved so much with so few words – that it is the "simple" that needs exalting rather than the obviously grand. And that a trained physician could create world class literature while devoting his life to the sick. 

   Thus, he healed with words as well as with his hands. The second time you read "The Red Wheelbarrow" notice the power of Williams' line breaks – how wheelbarrow becomes two words as does rainwater:

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens

   Williams' fourteen words float into sixteen. Profound simplicity becomes as complex & majestic as the light glazing the red surface of that wheelbarrow.

  One day this past summer I noticed effect the wind was having on the Mexican field grass in my neighbor's yard, walked over, filmed it &, with Dr. Williams whispering in my heart, made both a still picture (above) & a four minute meditation. Click on this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suBNsVwLYuI

-Erie Chapman

Photoart – "Becky's Heather" – Erie Chapman, 2020-2021