Monet's "Waterlilies"

Today 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.