Claude Monet — “Water Lilies”
We sat in the quiet of her home
a few days after the surgeon
had placed her under a canopy of sleep
to excise an uninvited guest from her chest.
We had tea over ice, slice of lemon.
Laura’s second son, Joshua, was to be married soon
to, she assured me, a charming girl. She was
concerned how she would look in fine dress.
I’d brought her a book of Monet paintings.
We laughed at how those blooms
would last well beyond the bounty
of roses the florist had delivered.
She was loved. She knew that she was loved.
Weeks later by a fountain in the atrium of a building,
I realized how her serenity had penetrated me
though I was the one who was supposed to be
giving to her. Monet’s lilies resting on water
cast this glow of peace. Being vegetal, lilies
can not show the dignity that Laura bore
in the quiet of her own house, talking
only days after her wounds were received.
We were in a room where her children still
passed at odd hours showing, at times, reflections of
her dignity. So that I can gauge that this, her manner,
will be passed down to her children’s children
for at least as long as Monet’s flowers grace gallery walls.
