ON CEZANNE

 ON CEZANNE

It was the blue and lemon of Cezanne

The abstract planes of mottled green in the various trees

The dappled red of the roofs I wanted to keep

To myself

On Sundays without the museums

Like a second shelter

The first being God and his blue green world

My tiny apartments with his prints on the walls

And it hurt me when people said Cezanne

As if they were saying anything at all, tossed off

And scared me

when I couldn’t remember the delicate sketches

He made of just green leaves daubed

I had glimpsed once when someone else was in a hurry

In the National Gallery bookshop

Come to me in dreams, oh green daubed leaves

Where there is time to think about leaf and the imagination

Of the leaf and why it is so cooling now and consoling

To catch one more shining glimpse of it

In my non theoretical mind.

As if that coolness could heal me now.

And I wonder beyond any possible sadness, mystified

How can the coolness of the rain daubed leaf

feel just the same as

In his painting so that I cannot tell at all the difference.

mary angela douglas 26 may 2024