© Sandra W. Soli, Oklahoma City, OK, 2006
Matisse in Morocco
By Sandra W. Soli, Oklahoma City, OK
Our horses are up to their
necks in flowers here.
--Pierre Loti
Come quickly, Amalie.
Have you seen shadows
or sunlight anywhere like these?
How new all this is,
how difficult to render
with reds, yellows, blues.
We must be bold!
Colors wash history clean here.
Even the people are flowers.
Look how indigos clasp
each other, imagining someone
always walking behind, perhaps
that woman in the street,
carrying a jug of water.
For her, art and life
the same thing.
Whites first, and umbers,
finally these lengthening
lavenders as city
comes to night bloom
like moonflowers
startling us hour by hour,
breakfast oranges and croissants
a distant mystery
far as the bells of camels
or previous ways of seeing.
Loti said his horse fell
swimming in petals.
I know now
he told the truth.
Ah, to drown in such a sea!
We must believe
gardens we can not see,
the fragrant twilight
framed at our window,
the woman below
walking away with her burden of life,
this view of paradise
that changes everything.
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