THE ISLANDS OFF THE LOST COAST OF MONET (REPOSTED)

 

THE ISLANDS OFF THE LOST COAST OF MONET

[to my Grandmother, Lucy W. Young]

in the islands off the lost coast of Monet

I culled the water lily colors

in the water

cupping my hands in music curving back

while in the air of wandering mirrors

this residue of a gold-threaded azure

lifted and fell...

it's the long-expected radiance

you can't explain

emeshed in the fairytales

as they're told

like hidden angels in the picture

you don't see at first

that have to be pointed out to you

before they melt again:

sheer traceries richly borrowed

from all that fondant light.

in a painting by Monet

cream yellow floats

edged in a tanager red...

but I am shimmering and lost

as if in a prelude by Debussy and

somehow in the way.

I tripped the rose-tripped light

of a hidden evanescence

holding the white cathedral still

only with my gaze

and I wept with no sound at all

into these plum-ransacked streams

smudging slightly

their taffeta waters purling -

crooning - to each loved thing:

"don't disappear..."

I'm calling your endangered colors home

and willing the unmoored prisms not to break

let silver trumpets sound

your amethyst testaments

by far

the last of their kind-

mary angela douglas 3-5 july 2010