Monet's Waterlilies by Robert Hayden

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.

This poem by Robert Hayden, seems to create a safe haven inside Monet's painting.  The art becomes a place to find peace and serenity in an otherwise chaotic, war torn time.  While it creates this space for reflection, it also has a feeling of war.  When I read it again, it almost seems like it is describing a bomb exploding, "the seen, the known / dissolve in iridescence" reminds me of those photographs and video clips of atomic bombs dropping and wiping out everything with a blast of white hot light.

The last stanza then could be the aftermath of the bomb, the silence and gravity that is felt when we realize what it really is we have done and destroyed, things we will never be able to undo, and we must live with the knowing and the consequences.  So the last line, instead of a reassuring reminder that we can still catch glimpses of lost joy, is instead an ironic, bitter statement that forces us to open our eyes to the realities of war, that we sometimes forget in our eagerness to win.

I thought of this song while studying the painting and thinking about the poem, it is Elephant Revival singing their song Cosmic Pulse, which I feel like you can hear in the painting and the text.  The live video I found has another of their songs Ancient Sea beforehand but it seems to fit so I included it in here.

Click here for these 2 awesome songs