For Corot

(Published Palabras-Press Online, May, 2006)

You, Corot, my hero,
of course you know
I bought a book of your drawings
thirty years ago
and slept with it under my pillow
for a year or more
slowly absorbing your soul
into my own

You, Corot, sometimes so somber
often I wonder
how you capture
that leafy silver
in your gossamer trees

How do you control the brush
to form the contours
of the rocks and pines
of forest and countryside?
Your compositions are mine

I am with you as you sit at your easel
in the fields, painting shepherds
and their flocks of sheep
capturing peace

I breathe your air and see with your eyes
the ease with which your brush
strokes rapidly
as you stroll through nature
ever the observer

I walk down your shadowy paths
in the near night of the twilight
of your canvases
and hear birds sing lullabies
from your ethereal trees

I know your need
to be alone in the forest
and feel your oneness
with the cosmos

Your portraits haunt me
your landscapes enchant me
Am I, are you, part of the same soul?
Are you now me?  Was I once you?