Thursday, January 25, 2018

Mont Sainte-Victoire and Chateau Noir (Paul Cezanne), Sonnet #389



















I’ve lived at the foot of a mountain too,
Pike's Peak, golden palaces on its flank.
I’ve stood in snowstorms on its peak in June.
At dawn it hummed silver, at sunset blue.
A slight fog rubbed it to a hulking blank.
Full moonlight carved from it a single rune.
In time I started to ignore the peak.
I had no painter’s eye or possession
To look at it harder each day and seek
The thing I hadn’t yet seen — a vision.
Now I live near the continental divide
In the Midwest, where on a swamp’s one side
The water runs east, on the other, west.
I walk its trails often seeking a quest.