Beneath the Trees, by Valerie Bacharach

Place des Lices, St. Tropez, by Paul Signac (France) 1893

Beneath the Trees
           
It is my father. He sits on a bench
on a patch of grass
beneath trees, a field of wheat
in the distance, a farmhouse’s
thatched roof gold under sun.
All are dots, bright-hued
circles of purple, blue, yellow, green.
Placed just so to form solids--
his body, the bench, the trees…
 
He wears a wide-brimmed hat,
a jacket and trousers, his dark shoes
firmly on violet earth.
His back is to me as I call 
dad, dad, my voice outside the frame.
 
He is colour within colour,
vivid in this circular world.
This must be heaven I think.
How pleasing to the eye.
How gentle the air, the bounce 
of colours, his breath a sigh 
of new-green leaves. ​

​Valerie Bacharach

Valerie Bacharach is a proud member of Carlow University’s Madwomen in the Attic writing workshops. Her writing has appeared or will appear in publications including Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Pittsburgh Quarterly, The Tishman Review, Topology Magazine, Poetica, The Ekphrastic Review, Talking/Writing, and Vox Viola.  Her chapbook, Fireweed, was published in August 2018 by Main Street Rag.