Joan Mitchell, “La Grande Vallée XIV (For a Little While)”, 1983.

I've always loved this painting.  Here's a poem
from a while ago, published in qarrtsiluni.

After Joan Mitchell’s La Grande Vallee XIV

as if your blue black blur of brush
and paint can conjure swamp

or luminous maple bud,
tree frog croon

as if layers of saturation can restore
the vernal pool that was my all in all

as if your calligraphy of oil and wash
can contain jack-in-the-pulpit

early fern or tad pole swirl
as if the colors, oh your colors

Cezanne blue Van Gogh sun
flower yellow raging across three panels

as if for a while my rough
ecstasy hasn’t dulled to insight.