Monet's Testament, by Royal Rhodes

Water Lilies, by Claude Monet (France) 1906

Monet's Testament

Master conjurer of light,
    you installed
      this elaborate
      and exotic park
    in your last art.
The work -- earthwork --
    weeding beds,
      planting willows,
      adjusting ponds
    with Japanese bridges.
Gardens are moral theatres
    claiming landscapes
      and bright basins
      of Nympheas
    touching the pond's edge.
Volcanic colours of sunset
    burn at the lips
      of tall lilies,
      willows present
    in shadows and flesh like.
You set the light
    escaping from darkness
      in this playhouse,
      not as benign but
    competing for food from soil.
Entanglements, strangulations,
    poisonous plantings,
      the deadly stabbings
      by moist tendrils,
    and, of course, beauty.
This botanical drama
    you wrapped around
      on walls, enfolding
      views like oil spills --
    gold splotches set alight.

Royal Rhodes

Royal Rhodes is a poet who lives in central Ohio. His poems have appeared in numerous journals in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., including The Ekphrastic Review, Ekphrastic Challenge, Mad Swirl, Backwards Trajectory, ORBIS, and The Montreal Review, among others.