The river bank alive with people
Seated, standing, mostly thinking
Many wtih a prop to handle:
Sunshade, flowers, pensive pipedream
Figures sunk in self absorption?
A monkey plays beside a puppy
Its tail an uncompleted circle
Behind them steps a fashion plated
Solemn couple both behatted
As befits them, stick and sunshade
At a stylish proper angle
Paunch and bustle corresponding
Stilled in motion like the butterfly
Fixed and fluttering in the yellow
Space between two unobserving
Women in the sunlit shadow.
Then further in the middle distance
Crosswinds blow from two directions
On yacht and dinghy, pleasure steamer
Over placid river water
While two men standing to attention
Listen to a silent trumpet
And nearby skips an oblivious girl.
A year's work here is concentrated
Seeking colour, harmony, shape
Geometry of the world of nature
Coordinates of Seine and sunshade
Perfect pitch of quantum optics,
Maroon and yellow, light and verdure,
Beauty in an active stasis
Isolate together, thoughtful,
A common playground quite transfigured
Fused and framed select perspective
Salvaged all from life pursuing
Beyond the frame along the river
Which foreground figures seem to think of
Looking left towards the light source
With we chance viewers quite excluded
From this past present Sunday scene.
©Terry Hodgson2020
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