Monet's Water Lilies, Musée de l'Orangerie, by Neil Creighton

Claude Monet at the Musee de l'Orangerie, France.

Monet's Water Lilies, Musée de l'Orangerie

The room is hushed.
People sit or stand as they stare,
awed into silence.
What do they see?
Is it water or sky, clouds floating,
a wonder of blue and lilac,
the surreal float of water lilies,
shimmering splashes of green, pink and yellow,
slender green-leafed pendant branches
of exquisite gracefulness,
moments cloudy, hazy, sun-sparkled in a way beyond beauty
or rippled by momentary touch of passing breeze?

Or do they see the master at his work,
sublime, magical, mystical,
representing the beauty of the world,
transcending time,
without beginning and without end,
ever-changing but forever there,
taking this sense of timeless beauty
and transferring it through his mastery
so that all we lesser humans
can glimpse in the small things-
    the shimmering play of colour from light,
    the dance of water and wind,
    the float of colour upon the blueness-
what is eternally there,
if only we had the eyes to see.

Neil Creighton

Neil Creighton is an Australian poet with a passion for social justice and a love of the natural world. Recent publications include "Poetry Quarterly", "Silver Birch Press", "Praxis Online", "South Florida Poetry Journal" and "Verse-Virtual", where he is a contributing editor. His poetry blog is windofflowers.blogspot.com.au

Reflets Verts, Musee de L'Orangerie, by Claude Monet (France), 1920 to 1926.