The Visitor

The Visitor

Mary Willis

The sky whitens
and the birch on the lawn is only
a long brushstroke of whiter air,
a figure already spirited away.
Soon dusk will inflate over solid earth
one diffuse bloom
with porous silver leaves.

I think of Monet
and his restless water lilies,
his ponds that were reflecting gardens,
impressions of growing light

until his field of vision wavered
through thick lenses. Cataracts
eclipsed reflection and even memory
of how sky lights first pulsed
into sight. They were everywhere
and nowhere all at once
like wind-blown waves setting up
fresh lines of thought,
washing colours over canvases—
uncaught.

At Giverny he lingered
as I do now at an open door,
then shut himself in
with a nocturnal flower,
a lamp to bud.
Day no longer spoke to day for him
but night showed knowledge to night.

He settled down to wait
and meditate, practice seeing
glory finding a perfect way through
still glass.

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Mary Willis
Poet & Novelist

Mary Willis lives in London, Ontario. Her poems have appeared in such journals and magazines as Canadian Literature, The Fiddlehead, Poems for Ephesians, Solum Journal, Faith Today, and Pulp Literature. She has published three chapbooks, and her work has been included in anthologies, most recently in In a Strange Land (Wipf & Stock, 2019). She also writes Christian novels.

Photography by Henry Dick