Surrounded by Monet’s Water Lilies by Alarie Tennille

Surrounded by Monet’s Water Lilies
Salle 1, L’Orangerie, Paris (in italics: quotes by Monet)
 
I would like to paint the way a bird sings.
 
Seduced by a serenade of light,
land, trees, and sky dive
deeper,
     deeper,
          deeper
into the pond. We wobble
at the edge, nearly toppling in
after them.
 
The subject…is the light.
 
Lily pads link mirror worlds.
Lavender peace. We still
our sway, mooring ourselves
to a bench while other pilgrims
orbit us.
 
…appearance changes at any moment
 
Visitors hush to whispers,
suspended in the moment paint
touched canvas, even as we swim
in the light of a full day, hours
shuffled by art.
 
It’s terrible how the light runs out.
 
We understand why sunset
tosses its last gold coins,
trying to buy off the night.

Alarie Tennille

Alarie Tennille was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, and graduated from the University of Virginia in the first class admitting women. She became fascinated by fine art at an early age, even though she had to go to the World Book Encyclopedia to find it. Today she visits museums everywhere she travels and spends time at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, where her husband is a volunteer guide. Alarie’s poetry book, Running Counterclockwise, contains many ekphrastic poems. Please visit her at alariepoet.com.
 
This poem was first published in the I-70 Review.