Je vous ai apporté des…

I brought you flowers for the Opening,

The sort of thing I would have liked.

Egocentric, I guess, to think that you’d be touched…

I stood there like a kid, embarrassed,

I told you it was rather old-fashioned,

Feeling intensely all the while how foolish

I looked in those white walls, bright with pretty people,

So large and modern, so stark to me, inhuman

Those faces blurred by smoke and right attitudes,

Chatting with wine glasses in hand, among like-souls

Who are at ease among the ultra progressive.

I felt keenly out of place, a country bumpkin,

Who should have stayed in my garden patch

Rather than attempt to invade a posh,

Sophisticated city like Geneva, my flowers

Dangling from limp fingers, fading from the trip

So far from the hills overlooking the Ermitage…

But you turned your gracious smile on me,

Your charming, cultivated welcome with just

The right words of “Don’t be silly! Flowers

Are always welcome…” and promised to save

The coquelicots by placing them in water.

I never got the chance to tell you not to cut the stems -

You were already gone, after depositing me

In the care of a young man who offered me a drink

And for whom I felt sorry because he couldn’t

Extricate himself afterwards with grace…

I gave him leave to leave and spent a full

Ten minutes trying to see art in pictures

That did not speak to me nor show me

New techniques or avant garde colors.

The train ride home made me realize my need

For a less citified form of art, not so glossy,

One that churns gut feelings and splatters colors

Across a virgin expanse expressing deep feelings.

But, still, I thank you for the invitation.

I learned a lot and have come home a bit more

Humble for the experience of bringing flowers…