Poetry Pick

I might be an Impressionist

by Roger Bell
Ontario, Canada


I am lying on my belly on the route to Avosne, backlit by the
rising morning, while sun-tipped fingers tease the shoulders of
this pristine road. Before me is a painting I'm not good enough
to completely capture, not with this camera, not with this
poem, the world is far too imposing, I far too unpainterly, but
given what is proffered, it's incumbent that I try, before I lose
the angle, before the earth shrugs fully awake:

The hill on the upper right declines gracefully to the left.
Where it starts at the frame edge it is treed gentle and deep
green, follow me now, don't dawdle, though the temptation is
to linger, it becomes stubbled in soldier rows marching down
the hill towards me, so I step into their rhythm and imagine
it crunch and snap precisely when trod by the Romans
who once were here, I know, I know that's aural, but the brush
decides what it will paint, and how, and sound has texture in
the moment like the delicate passing of lips across an eyelid,
and the sharp relief of sun deepens the deep between the ranks
and makes the gold more golden while tire tracks from laden
wagons meander drunkenly off into the whispered distance and
then invading from the left a wedge of woods, a gliding hint of
fence, then back the other way the purple church bells pealing,
and now the sensual eye moves on to the sky above this all, a
breath of brilliant blue, a hue and cry of hawks hung like
unsung hymns, an invocation to this dawning day.

From Bonjour Burgundy (Mosaic Press 2008)
         edited by John B. Lee


 

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