Poems:Zawinski

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Revision as of 23:59, 7 April 2006

Impressions en Plein Air

(From Flight 2199, Regarding Monet)

Far above the street scene graffiti of Paris,
I think of you, Monet, from the air up here
flying this sea foam sky, a shelf of waves
against a floor of mist breaking open in patches
of blue and white. 

And I, like some devotee of impending collisions
in texture and transparency, dapple words
as Giverny expatriates might have once on palettes
a harvest of light, cultivating a poetry of space
en plein air. 

I have looked, Monet, into the mirror into which
you must have many times glanced or long gazed, 
your Orient prints awash in blue flirting the glass
with the constant movement of the sea in which
little else has changed. 

You grew big bellied with age, Monet, tousle of hair
thick with gray, sight on the wane, canvases growing, 
you padding through the long yawn of rooms painted
blue as lichen, yellow as sunflowers, reflecting lilies
afloat between the sky and the water. 

But in your garden, beyond the rose blanketed fence, 
those flowers brown now in a wilted July. I have looked, 
Monet, into the mirror into which you must have
glanced or long gazed recollecting those lilies for me, 
yet another tourist here. 

They tell me that the best part of your life, Monet, 
was inhabiting these gardens. And as the light fades, 
I cannot help but wonder where it is next that I will go, 
and of my words, what will they become stretching there
en plein air. 

Andrena Zawinski

Andrena Zawinski is the author of a full collection of poetry, Traveling in Reflected Light, issued from Pig Iron Press as a Kenneth Patchen competition winner; a chapbook, Andrena Zawinski's Greatest Hits 1991-2001, part of the invitational and archival series from Pudding House; an online collection of Elegies at The Pittsburgh Quarterly. Her individual publications are many and include work that has appeared in Gulf Coast, Quarterly West, Santa Clara Review, Nimrod International, Paterson Literary Review, and many more. Her poetry also has been showcased online at For Poetry, Disquieting Muses, On the Page, Adirondack Review, and elsewhere. Zawinski is Feature Editor at PoetryMagazine.com, is a volunteer with the Robert Hass Lunch Poems reading series at U C Berkeley, and is on the editorial board for UnitedPoets.org.