Musee D'Orsay

I took this photo of Van Gogh's Starry Night Over the Rhone at the weekend in Musee D'Orsay in Paris. You walk around a corner and there it is for all to admire. There are so many gorgeous paintings in Orsay and I felt like a little kid at Christmas there.

So it was a beautiful weekend anyway despite the high security and I feel sad for Paris but the people there must be very resilient and I hope they continue to be because it is still La Ville Lumière.

I wrote this poem about 10 years ago after seeing this Monet painting adorning the cover of Emile Zola's LA Bete Humaine which I had read. You can imagine my excitement when I saw the painting again at the weekend. The poem was published in an early issue of Boyne Berries.

Saint-Lazare Station

I fell in love once and given

Pearls and moonstone to put around my neck

I was told that the curse of the dream was waking.

I could never understand just missing the train.

Surely there would be another one coming,

In an hour and if not today, then tomorrow.

Tomorrow I’d catch the same train again

And reach my destination.

But I couldn’t venture back into the past.

Sometimes I dream.  I dream in the way

The impressionists painted their pictures,

Sometimes grainy and far away. 

I arrive there on the ghost train

And disembark on the platform

Admiring the silver railway tracks.

Then the steam from the engine

And the fog, come rolling in from the countryside,

Embrace each other in another century.