in honor of a former student's first visit to Paris:

Impressionist Galleries, Musée d’Orsay

The illumination here is perfect:
Winter sunshine warms
The Caillebottes, Pisarros, each canvas washed
In even, northern light.
Beyond the window, clouds race over Montmartre, which rises
Above the city in shifting sun and shadow.

Visitors to the galleries cast minor shadows,
Their footfalls muffled. Each canvas is perfectly
Aligned for viewing. A reverent hum rises:
Murmured appreciation. A Monet haystack is forever warm
In August sun; Cézanne’s gamblers study their cards in steady light;
A still life stays ever ripe, its glass and linen always newly washed.

The gallery’s space is constantly awash
In movement: A Japanese girl walks in her boyfriend’s shadow;
Six Italian art students chatter, hair bleach-highlighted,
Ignore a disapproving Cézanne self-portrait; a businessman in a perfectly
Tailored suit bends to read a provenance and, suddenly warm,
Removes his scarf; a woman of a certain age rises

From a bench to study a Van Gogh portrait. Odd flashes of color rise
In its night-blue sky. Monet’s cathedral remains awash
In morning haze; Renoir’s cat stays forever warm
In Julie Manet’s embrace; a child sits permanently in the shadow
Of Monet’s luncheon table. Two Sisleys of one flood hang in perfect,
Permanent synchronicity, different only in angle, quality of light.

Whistler’s mother in black and grey ponders some inward light;
Degas’s laundress enjoys a never-ending yawn, steam rising
From her iron; his dancers hold their poses perfectly.
The still gallery is always awash
In the movement of its visitors. I glance from the indoor shadows
To the bright window. A voice murmurs warmly,

“C’est beau, Sacre Coeur, n’est-ce pas, tout en face?” Two warm
Smiles greet me: an aged couple, arm in arm, delight
In the direction of my gaze, from Whistler’s still, shadowed
Mother to the window. We three gaze at their city. His hand rises,
Rests on her shoulder. Sacre Coeur is suddenly washed
In brilliant light. Others join us, rapt, in a flash of perfection:

Clouds racing, shadows rising,
Paris is warmed, awash for an instant
In perfect winter light!