<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Monet Refuses the Operation</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Doctor, you say that there are no haloes</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">around the streetlights in Paris</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">and what I see is an aberration</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">caused by old age, an affliction.</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">I tell you it has taken me all my life</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">to soften and blur and finally banish</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">the edges you regret I don't see,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">to learn that the line I called the horizon</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">does not exist and sky and water,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">so long apart, are the same state of being.</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Fifty-four years before I could see</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Rouen cathedral is built</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">of parallel shafts of sun,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">and now you want to restore</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">my youthful errors: fixed</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">notions of top and bottom,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">the illusion of three-dimensional space,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">wisteria separate</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">from the bridge it covers.</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">What can I say to convince you</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">the Houses of Parliament dissolve</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">night after night to become</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">the fluid dream of the Thames?</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">I will not return to a universe</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">of objects that don't know each other,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">as if islands were not the lost children</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">of one great continent. The world</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">is flux, and light becomes what it touches,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">becomes water, lilies on water,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">above and below water,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">becomes lilac and mauve and yellow</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">and white and cerulean lamps,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">small fists passing sunlight</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">so quickly to one another</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">that it would take long, streaming hair</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">inside my brush to catch it.</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">To paint the speed of light!</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">Our weighted shapes, these verticals,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">burn to mix with air</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">and changes our bones, skin, clothes</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">to gases. Doctor,</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">if only you could see</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">how heaven pulls earth into its arms</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">and how infinitely the heart expands</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class="">to claim this world, blue vapor without end.</div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Lisel Mueller</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></body></html>