Prose Poem: Writing in Jardin du Luxembourg

A feeling of incredible happiness, peace, joy, serenity, confidence. By the end of the evening the sun peeped out from behind the fog, illuminating by its dim, warm light the palace’s pale yellow limestone, colourful figures of people walking, white paths, pink, purple, yellow flowers bordering lush green lawns.

Something is subtly changing in me, it just happens without any effort. It's amazing how could I not remember who I am all this time. The light grows brighter and brighter. A white dove lit by the evening sun paints a semicircle along the row of statues; the shadows of the trees, becoming longer, lie down on the green lawn; golden sunbeams are slowly creeping along the palace’s roofs and walls. A moment comes when it seems that the colors cannot become any brighter—crimson scarlet, fiery yellow, sparkling green ... and at this very moment they fade out.

The coming evening breathes cool and brings magic. A stone bowl and marble statues nearby start glowing at dusk, as well as the very paper on which I am writing—I see a faint shadow from my pen’s tip on its pinkish-white surface. The light moves inside things, fading on the surface but flaring up in their depths.

Suddenly it flashes again with a bright bouquet of colors. The blackness of a crow’s wing, the pink of some petunias, the blue of a monastic habit, the pale green of a sunset sky that looks like antique glass, the thick blue of the clouds on the horizon...

The evening lasts, and the joy lasts, and the waiting for night is easy and pure like the waiting for a miracle. A miracle is being born from within, it’s just happening, like a forgotten language coming alive in memory. The light turns pink and fades out, my paper becomes brighter again. And when it seems that night is irreversible, the windows of the building opposite me suddenly flare up in the twilight with a dazzling, unbearable brilliance—the sun sends its rays into the garden for the last time, a promise of tomorrow.

Credits

• My sincere gratitude to the Isle of Write Poetry Pond Workshop for deep feedback and precise suggestions.
• Photo by Jean Robert Thibault