I came for a visit, but stayed a lifetime, my eye

          captured by wide skies

panoramas, sunlit landscapes stretching west

I have studied the style of classic conventions

          the techniques of Claude Lorraine

but find Arcadian mists unsuited to Sydney

          on a summer day

So I leave behind his gentle shepherds, the stag

          posing on a bank

Place horsemen from the Governor’s estate

          on a patch of sunlight

Through the valley at Pannerong, swamp oaks

evoke a dark terrain. The harbour peeps

through a stand of native figs, Gee-bung pines

          cling to the shore

On the track to the lighthouse I catch sunlight

          on a monumental gum

highlight straggly bark,bracken in bright colour

Subdue raw light under layers of varnish

- after View above Rose Bay, NSW, 1841, Conrad Martens 

© Brenda Saunders