Talking to Monet
People, I tell him. I can see people:
shadows, black-burnt, threading
their way between trees — and there,
behind, Parliament rises
like a cathedral I’d say
though I’ve not the faith of it —
so, something else then: a hand,
wanting air
as if, all this time,
the earth had only held it safe.
It is all so new, I say,
the colours are so quiet:
how you’ve infused grey with blue
so it seeps into clouds — or out —
I picture the blue
as a kindness.
There is more?
Yes, but this will sound silly —
(No, he says, go on)
it lifts my heart. Look, I say,
how the barest hint of red traces its way —
like a vein — across the sky; it is alive.
He nods, I feel it too.
And the water, what of that?
I could quite believe, I say,
that the water breathes.
Juliet Humphreys has previously had poems published on Ink Sweat and Tears and also in The North, Acumen, Orbis and The Rialto. She has also recently completed a novel. When not writing she teaches in a special needs school.