"Monet" by Howard Nemerov

"Blue Water Lilies" by Claude Monet, 1916-1919

Unable to get into the Monet show,

Too many people there, too many cars,

We spent the Sunday morning at Bowl Pond

A mile from the Museum, where no one was,

And walked an hour or so around the rim

Beside five acres of flowering waterlilies

Lifting three feet above their floating pads

Huge yellow flowers heavy on bending stems

In various phases of array and disarray

Of Petals packed, unfolded, opening to show

The meaty orange centers that become,

When the ruined flags fall away, green shower heads

Spilling their wealth of seed at summer’s end

Into the filthy water among small fish

Mud-colored and duck moving explorative

Through jungle pathways opened among the fronds

Upon whose surface water drops behave

Like mercury, collecting in heavy silver coins

Instead of bubbles; some few redwinged blackbirds

Whistling above all this once in a while,

The silence else unbroken all about.

"Monet" by Howard Nemerov from The Selected Poems of Howard Nemerov. © Swallow Press, 2003.

"Summer's Elegy" by Howard Nemerov

                                                            "End of Summer" by Brett James Smith

Day after day, day after still day,

The summer has begun to pass away.
Starlings at twilight fly clustered and call,
And branches bend, and leaves begin to fall.
The meadow and the orchard grass are mown,
And the meadowlark's house is cut down.

The little lantern bugs have doused their fires,
The swallows sit in rows along the wires.
Berry and grape appear among the flowers
Tangled against the wall in secret bowers,
And cricket now begins to hum the hours
Remaining to the passion's slow procession
Down from the high place and the golden session
Wherein the sun was sacrificed for us.
A failing light, no longer numinous,
Now frames the long and solemn afternoons
Where butterflies regret their closed cocoons.
We reach the place unripe, and made to know
As with a sudden knowledge that we go
Away forever, all hope of return
Cut off, hearing the crackle of the burn-
ing blade behind us, and the terminal sound
Of apples dropping on the dry ground.

"Summer's Elegy" by Howard Nemerov, from The Collected Poems. © The University of Chicago Press, 1981.