Pardon, by Matthew Murrey

Pardon in Brittany, by Gaston La Touche (France) 1896

Pardon 

After months of disease 
with everything shut down
I long for a few hours in the Art
Institute in Chicago, to be 
Cassatt’s child being washed 
or Kandinsky’s troika rushing
up the wave of a field 
with all that wild blue in tow.
I want to shelter in a box 
that Cornell has furnished 
with trinkets—simple relics--
then go stare into the glassy blue 
love of Chagall’s better city.
Maybe I’ll pause for the rain 
in Paris, or rest in a yellow chair 
beneath a green window, 
even climb into the bed 
and nap under its red blanket.
I’ll finish in Brittany where I started 
thirty-some years ago in reverence 
for La Touche’s candle flames 
making the white wimples glow 
as the faithful, who I no longer 
stand among, stand hushed 
and bowed as a priest forgives  
them while a pale horse, with help 
from the lavender evening, 
holds it all down, bearing 
a woman and a child on its back.

Matthew Murrey

Matthew Murrey: "My poems have appeared in journals such as Prairie Schooner, Poetry East, and Rattle.  I am a NEA Fellowship recipient, and my debut poetry collection, Bulletproof, was published in February 2019 by Jacar Press.  I am a high school librarian in Urbana, Illinois.  My website is at https://www.matthewmurrey.net/"

Painting with Troika, by Vasily Kandinsky (Russia) 1911

Ann in Memory, by Joseph Cornell (USA) 1954

Paris Street, Rainy Day, by Gustave Caillebotte (France) 1877