Hortense and Paul Cezanne
Posted: 08 May 2019, 21:58
Hortense and Paul Cezanne
My husband once said I liked nothing
but “Switzerland and lemonade”.
That wasn’t true. I loved our son
and fashions
but Paul could think of nothing
as we climbed among the meadows
of wildflowers and weeping fjords
but getting back to painting.
Anytime away from his studio
he said was a waste,
like the gravel deposited by glaciers.
But if you had asked about Pissarro,
he would have gone into the raptures
of a bride describing her wedding.
Has any woman felt more love
expressed than when he laid
a canvas gently in front of me,
Hortense Breast Feeding Paul?
Yet for nearly seventeen years we lived
together, unmarried. Mostly apart.
Who raised our little Paul?
Where was his father?
Painting, of course.
I knew as little about art
as Paul knew about bustles.
But even after our divorce
I remained his favorite model.
Over the years Paul, ever the loner,
turned sullen, withdrawing
like some rarely seen fish,
sharing depths of his inner life
with no one but his canvases.
Yet I will always remember
Hortense Breast Feeding Paul,
brushstrokes stroking my half asleep torso
as tenderly as Paul's fingers
and voice touched me
in our early days
together.
My husband once said I liked nothing
but “Switzerland and lemonade”.
That wasn’t true. I loved our son
and fashions
but Paul could think of nothing
as we climbed among the meadows
of wildflowers and weeping fjords
but getting back to painting.
Anytime away from his studio
he said was a waste,
like the gravel deposited by glaciers.
But if you had asked about Pissarro,
he would have gone into the raptures
of a bride describing her wedding.
Has any woman felt more love
expressed than when he laid
a canvas gently in front of me,
Hortense Breast Feeding Paul?
Yet for nearly seventeen years we lived
together, unmarried. Mostly apart.
Who raised our little Paul?
Where was his father?
Painting, of course.
I knew as little about art
as Paul knew about bustles.
But even after our divorce
I remained his favorite model.
Over the years Paul, ever the loner,
turned sullen, withdrawing
like some rarely seen fish,
sharing depths of his inner life
with no one but his canvases.
Yet I will always remember
Hortense Breast Feeding Paul,
brushstrokes stroking my half asleep torso
as tenderly as Paul's fingers
and voice touched me
in our early days
together.