The Painter & The Shutterbug
On the top floor of the Institute
In the halls of history
There hangs a lucent landscape
On a wall in three-oh-three
Of deftly earnest mise-en-scène
And haunting rêverie
A primal panorama
With strange fidelity
Its hand pursued perfection
Translating the gloam
To subtle tones of sepia
In muted monochrome
Funnel cloud of murky gray
And sky of ghastly roan
"Tornado over St. Paul"
Painted by Julius Holm
On that fateful afternoon
When summer skies turned black
The twisting turning tempest
Carved a cataclysmic track
It crossed the northern waters
With an awful thunderous crack
As nervous eyes looked skyward
To witness the ruin and wrack
A shutterbug went out that day
And set up all his stuff
To photograph the skyline
From a perch atop the bluff
He climbed the stony staircase
And lingered long enough
To capture a moment in history
Like a diamond in the rough
Mister William Koester
Alone in darkened room
Developed the emulsion
To reveal the scene of gloom
Printed as a postcard
And then before too soon
It found its way to painter’s hand
One fateful afternoon
He held it up against his work
A fair interpretation
Smiling as he signed the piece
Proud of his creation
He framed it in a humble wood
Then back to his vocation
A life of painting houses
In quiet desperation
He would not live to see his art
Adorn museum walls
Now it hangs as a reminder
To heed adventure's calls
So seek out secret stories
And haunt the hallowed halls
To find the precious treasures
Where hidden history falls
