Monet's Garden
        Giverny, 20 August 2005

The lily's charm is not
its colors but how it
floats, as if free, upon

the pond's dark surface. We
make our way over his

wooden bridge and then pass
the shrubs and flowers he
planted, arranged just so

to paint. How carefully
the pigment would be placed,

how gradually the world —
its daily businesses —
would become still and deep.

Copyright © 2009 Burt Kimmelman All rights reserved
from As If Free
Talisman House, Publishers
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission