birthday sonnet
for Eric Sweet
History has it his brown period
began with them as all things took red tinge,
the slow crawl of their blur starting to cloud
out light. But before censorship’s revenge,
at age sixty-nine he first showed Water
Lilies at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune.
Frustrated by his slow progress three years
earlier, he had destroyed works, too soon
to realize the light would never burn
as bright again, like world’s end at noon. Still,
even with vision fading, he returned
to the lilies, now mural-sized. Not will
alone could take him there, nor memory.
They say museums’ namesake sets us free.
Roger Armbrust
September 15, 2001
