"Mrs Monet Cleans the Lily Pond" by Geraldine Mills
She trawls her net across the green rash of weed,
he watching her from the window in a frenzy
so that he will not lift a brush, a palate knife
until she's done, her dress flounced into her pantaloons
a hat protecting her from the Givergny sun.
In the gather of time, she sees picnics in plein air
with Mrs Renoir, Pisarro though they don't see
eye to eye on dress fabrics or ducks' livers,
Mrs Cezanne a bit too dry for her taste
and yet she has a soft reasoning at the dinner table
when tempers rise, a glass knocked over
spills its red stain upon the white damask
and a voice gravels from beyond.
Her net fills with the smell of rotting.
She dredges newts out of their philanderings,
a silt of caddis world, of wandering snail,
a leech puckers to the cold skin of her calf
until the water ripples out of its surface tension
and all he sees are blooms full and pert as divas.
7 comments:
Great poem
Why clean the bath? is the Rector wanting to do home bapstims?? !!
Oh I do hope not, Angela! Health and Safety, and the die-hard child baptists, would have a fit!
I do love that poem! Have enjoyed reading around here on your blog. So nice!
jody
Wonderful poem--thanks for sharing.
And what does it mean to move it up a gear in church? My mind is spending with the possibilities. What gear are you in now?
frances
What would it look like if you "moved up a notch"?
Well I'm imagining a bath with a white Biggles scarf streaming out behind as we race through the spiritual realms, all clinging white-knuckled to the sides! As opposed to spending a Friday in the slow gear of not being able to decide whether or not it will stay dry enough to dry clothes and making buns instead...
Oh thank you; I enjoyed that poem! Maybe the unromantic realities of our own lives will fade with history and we'll be left in sepia proudly holding our perfectly iced (careful camera angle here) cakes.
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