Pissarro Viewed From An Elevation Poem by Bernard Henrie

Clouds painted in patternless sky,
engines of circumstance and time
barreling over the ridge, over hills.
Clouds like smoke semaphores
traveling without purpose or memory.

Paintings seen from high above
sketched across air like bird wings.

Whispers in the polyvocal.
Freely given. The senseless.

False starts, dredged fragments
rolled papers, scrawled palimpsest
as pond moss seems to shade
the shallow water in meditation;
regatta boats throw shadows
on Pizarro's Lagoon of Torreviega.