by D L Ennis
Robert Hayden’s poem, “Monet’s Waterlilies” was written in one of the most turbulent eras that this country has ever known. As if daily reports from Saigon, of the escalating numbers of deaths of young, American soldiers, and of supposed atrocities being inflected on innocent civilian’s weren’t enough, there was civil unrest of an extreme nature taking place, primarily, in the southern United States; people were dying in the streets of Selma, Alabama. On that day in 1966, that Robert Hayden’s poem speaks of, it seems that the speaker is seeking sanctuary, apparently in a museum, where he finds peace and tranquility in Monet’s painting “Waterlilies.”
Monet's WaterliliesToday as the news from Selma and Saigon
poisons the air like fallout,
I come again to see
the serene, great picture that I love.Here space and time exist in light
the eye like the eye of faith believes.
The seen, the known
dissolve in iridescence, become
illusive flesh of light
that was not, was, forever is.O light beheld as through refracting tears.
Here is the aura of that world
each of us has lost.
Here is the shadow of its joy.
In such trying times as Hayden portrays, “Today as the news from Selma and Saigon poisons the air like fallout…” (1 & 2) most of us seek some form of relief from the insanity. The poems speaker does just that “…I come again to see the serene great picture that I love…” (3 & 4). Lines one and two are so powerful, and the second line, “…poisons the air like fallout…” (2) is so profound, in that, it speaks for so many of us who see violence as a poison.
As an impressionist painter, Monet depended on light and shadows to bring his paintings to life, allowing the observer to be drawn into the painting. When the speaker says, “Here space and time exist in light…” (5) he is being drawn in to the painting; permitting himself to find liberation from the disconcerting news of the day; time no longer exist and the space his mind occupies, at the moment, is all there is; a perfect world.
Article comments
1 - SFC Ski
When I was in St. Petersburg, FL. I was able to see a beautiful exhibition of Monet's work, I too find his painting calming and serene.
2 - visualsimplicity
I hear the Water Lilies exhibit at the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris is definitely a thing that inspires calm and serenity, if not just an outright gasp of breathtaking beauty. One of these days I shall see this for myself, till then, I can only imagine it (and even that is enticing).
3 - Shark
Monet's Waterlilies = great art
Waterlilies Poem = pedestrian, mediocre, states the obvious, and WAY too literal
IMO.
4 - Shark
"...we must seek to remember that there is still beauty and good in the world, and if that means going to a museum and allowing yourself to be consumed by the beauty of art... then by all means, do so..."
[NOTE: Please try to avert your eyes from the giftshop and restaurant.
Thanks,
The Anti-Management]