Charles Baudelaire In Extremis Poem by Daniel Brick

Partially paralyzed, rendered
speechless after a stroke,
the dying poet argued with his doctor,
a fashionable atheist, about
the existence of God. He pointed
toward the setting sun -
its golden sheen burning
across the low horizon, framed
by skeletal trees - and he
mouthed strangled sounds, and
kept pointing and gesturing, gasping
for the words that once flowed
so easily from his lips to the page.

But what was his meaning?
Did he mean only a beautiful
God could have created the sunset?
Or did he mean the sunset itself
was a god, that it was enough
to worship its timely recurrence
every night of every day across time?
Or in his affliction had he acquired
the sky's view of the landscape?
And in that passionate apprehension
had the poet of Flowers of Evil
finally achieved a full blossoming
within his yearning soul?