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| Will Barnet Self Portrait ca. 1940 drypoint National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC |
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| Alfred Gescheidt Will Barnet teaching at the Art Students' League, New York ca. 1950 gelatin silver print Archives of American Art, Washington DC |
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| Will Barnet Indian Summer 1951 lithograph Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, New York |
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| Will Barnet Sketch for Meadow Wood 1952 watercolor on paper Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC |
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| Will Barnet Janus and the White Vertebra 1955 oil on canvas Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Will Barnet Abstract Still Life 1957 color woodblock print Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, New York |
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| Will Barnet Woman and Cats 1962 color woodblock print Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Will Barnet Study for Summer ca. 1968 charcoal on vellum Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Will Barnet Silent Seasons: Winter 1968 lithograph Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Will Barnet The Book 1975 lithograph (from portfolio, Bicentennial Prints) Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, New York |
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| Will Barnet Fifth Season 1977 lithograph Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Will Barnet Animals & Art 1979 lithograph (poster) Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, New York |
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| Will Barnet Self Portrait with Crow 1980 oil on canvas National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC |
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| Will Barnet Study for Three Muses ca. 1980-85 charcoal and oil-stick on paper Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Will Barnet Study for Self Portrait 1983 charcoal on vellum Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Will Barnet The Blue Thread 1984 oil on canvas Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Will Barnet Big Grey 1987 lithograph (from American Abstract Artists Print Portfolio) Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
from Up and Down
2 / The Emerald
Hearing that on Sunday I would leave,
My mother asked if we might drive downtown.
Why certainly – off with my dressing gown!
The weather had turned fair. We were alive.
Only the gentle General she married
Late, for both an old way out of harm's,
Fought for breath, surrendered in her arms,
With military honors now lay buried.
That week the arcana of his medicine chest
Had been disposed of, and his clothes. Gold belt
Buckle and the letter from President Roosevelt
Went to an unknown grandchild in the West.
Downtown, his widow raised her parasol
Against the Lenten sun's not yet detectable
Malignant atomies which an electric needle
Unfreckles from her soft white skin each fall.
Hence too her chiffon scarf, pale violet,
And spangle-paste dark glasses. Each spring we number
The new dead. Above ground, who can remember
Her as she once was? Even I forget,
Fail to attend her, seem impervious . . .
Meanwhile we have made through a dense shimmy
Of parked cars burnished by the midday chamois
For Mutual Trust. Here cool gloom welcomes us,
And all, director, guard, quite palpably
Adore her. Spinster tellers one by one
Darting from cages, sniffling to meet her son.
Think of her having a son – ! She holds the key
Whereby palatial bronze gates shut like jaws
On our descent into this inmost vault.
The keeper bends his baldness to consult,
Brings a tin box painted mud-brown, withdraws.
She opens it. Security. Will. Deed.
Rummages further. Rustle of tissue, a sprung
Lid. Her face gone queerly lit, fair, young,
Like faces of our dear ones who have died.
No rhinestone now, no dilute amethyst,
But of the first water, linking star to pang,
Teardrop to fire, my father's kisses hang
In lipless concentration round her wrist.
Gray are these temple-drummers who once more
Would rouse her, girl-bride jeweled in his grave.
Instead, she next picks out a ring. "He gave
Me this when you were born. Here, take it for –
For when you marry. For your bride. It's yours."
A den of greenest light, it grows, shrinks, glows,
A den of greenest light, it grows, shrinks, glows,
Hermetic stanza bedded in the prose
Of the last thirty semiprecious years.
I do not tell her, it would sound theatrical,
Indeed this green room's mine, my very life.
We are each other's; there will be no wife;
The little feet that patter here are metrical.
But onto her worn knuckle slip the ring.
Wear it for me, I silently entreat,
Until –until the time comes. Our eyes meet.
The world beneath the world is brightening.
– James Merrill (1972)