The Islands Off The Lost Coast Of Monet Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

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