"Escape"

(Jacob van Ruisdael's "Landscape with Oaks and Waterlilies")

Turning the page in the art book,
she's unexpectedly caught
by van Ruisdael's landscape.

The dark massed oaks
hold her motionless
with no room to breathe

between them, as the heavy
gray clouds press down
to drive air from her lungs.

Choked, she feels the chill
that has reddened the billows
of cloud-dimmed leaves.

One fingertip slowly traces
the sunbright arc of the dead oak
which curves like a scythe

across the living, then draws
it back, surprised
at the absence of blood.

Shrunken as the shepherd
almost lost against the forest,
she turns to the few waterlilies

almost lost against the darkened,
overgrown water; even these
move from green to cold-stunned red

as her eyes traverse from left
to right. And there, above
the only lily reflected in the water,

the trees spread apart,
open to the distant headland
indistinct but radiant in the sun.