— After Monet’s Woman with a Parasol, 1875
They’ve just stopped their stroll this moment
and are looking down the hill she’s climbed
from the other side and her son is cresting—as if
the artist below were snapping a candid photo.
This glorious day won’t pause
for a formal portrait. It’s all flash
and glint, air and motion, and she’s
in the quicksilver of it, the details
of her shadowed face not important—
only that her veil—captured with the same
fleet brushstrokes—blows as breezily about it
as the cirrus clouds blow in the sky,
only that her scarf flutters at her neck,
her skirts swirl like rivulets of water
flowing around a rock in a stream,
her hems lift and sway as she walks.
The prism of light breaks and spills
its radiance. No color is singular:
the white of her costume
purpled and blued, and glowing yellow
on her sleeve—the wildflowers’ hue
flown upward—and even her deep shadow
in the grass hints lavender and violet.
Her muted back-lit figure, and her little son’s,
her parasol, intense dark green,
all heighten the light that floods the unshaded
flower-dappled grasses, and pours
and dazzles in the cloud-bright sky—
mostly still ungrayed—and make light’s tincture
that much more tender where it daubs
the boy’s shoulders and the crown
of his straw hat, pearls
the sun-streamed edge
of his mother’s skirts and jacket.
Moving stillness! Stuck in our sequestered
static spaces thick with human smells
shadowed hearts curled inwards,
we dream of airing ourselves for hours—
our bodies refreshed as wash on the line,
wind beating against us, lavish sun
spilling over our upturned faces.
National Gallery of Art, U.S. 1 -2
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