Water Lilies

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Perspectives disappear from the canvas 
Flattened to show what's not yet there;
Hazy impressions daubed onto a background
Of reflections from the garden surrounds,
Firing rods and cones with imagination,
That tells the occipital cortex to wake up
And stir memories stored in grey matter,
Dormant in the winter of increasing years,
Waiting for daffodils to trumpet
The arrival of a February spring.
 
But instead crocuses open under a winter sun
Floating above a January dawn.
While we are indoors, transfixed by nymphaea,
Revealing what was always there.
 

On seeing Monet's water lilies, Royal Academy of Arts, London
 
February 2016