At the end of last month Melissa offered a prompt at dVerse poets with some paintings for inspiration as she has done before, including back in May with some paintings of Marc Chagall, to which I responded with a recent favorite poem of mine “The Girl at the Fair” for a Chagall painting entitled “La promenade (The Promenade)” .
This new prompt had some Henri Rousseau paintings to choose from, Launch: light and truth of painting.
Now I didn’t get to anything at the time but I did have one of the paintings in mind for when I did, especially as the painting was also titled La Promenade – “La Promenade dans la Foret (The Walk in the Forest) – 1886
The Girl with the Umbrella
She departed straightforward
straight out
to the path travelled through the wood
well
but not well enough
thoughts of days discovered
like treasure from stories of bounty
to spend on sweets
and unattainable things
wrapped in her umbrella he held once when they giggled in the rain
straightforward
straight out
to the path through the wood
once more
well
to the clearing
to open her umbrella
hoping for fresh rain
Frankenberry's Attic 
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