MANESSIER'S ART
IMPROVISATION #50
(1911-1993)

Granting us a spring day
in Paris
for those of us
not embarrassed to say
we who revere a glass stained
miracle in a new Mosiac
back from his bay
window out to the sky
or searching in the shadows
for Manessier's art
in a cape at the Nord church
are in part in a catholic
language all our own
as a forerunner of pop art
who was influenced
in nature's part
there stopping by
fjord by juniper trees
with dying hyacinth
near birch branches
watching birds mount
up to a an early winter
congenial sky
as a beggar in the breeze
listens intently
to my riffs
of American jazz
he stars to yawn
in a swift nick of time
before a January sunset
when he quietly
picks off a variety
of menial fruits
boasting in his contrary mind
as if waiting for the stars
he starts to freeze
catching cold by night
in a casual storm off
the coastal Seine
by an outside tent
under light rain and snow
others share warm nights
enfolding us at ease.