Monet
1.
Details frighten me.
As the trembling blue
Strokes of
The cathedral imply
It has been there
And it has not been there
Since the thirteenth century.
Details frighten me.
2.
To live only near water.
The brush
The trees, the river.
Sunlight will not break us—
Rather
We move illumined
Return daily, Monet
Returning daily
To save what has been hammered
By the sun
Most of it unmapped, still
Uncharted
Coming daily into the light
3.
The ocean
is allowed to be blue
But the cliff is ordered to be blue
The nearer browns
And greens are footholds for the weakness
We or Monet bring to Fécamp
Nothing
Leans here , nothing is in pain here
But the last cliff
Struggling in its hardness to acknowledge
Its distance from us, yes
The entrance to the sea is the sea
Itself
4.
When it rained
I forgot you
And home, and heritage.
When it rained
The oldest flowers died.
Poplar, dogwood
The family in a brave garden—
Coins of light
At four o'clock.
What is the risk
When those we are near or love
Are shown to have no eyes?
Lake's mist through the garden
Fades in the twilight
I could not show you, I wanted
To ask you, you were asleep.
5.
It changes.
It changed between your walks.
Did you drop your tools
In the forest like a fool?
These were not
Details
The last lily ponds
This was what the world
Could not erase
What changed?
No one broke the water
I touched the cathedral
What exactly changed
When you dropped your tools
In the forest?
Copyright Credit: Mark Kirschen, "Monet" from Pier's End. Copyright © 1980 by Mark Kirschen. Reprinted by permission of Eliot Weinberger.
Source: Pier’s End (Montemora Foundation, 1980)