My brush pulls
a blue thread
down the throat
of the black bird
I am painting.
I'm after the plum
impressions
and cobalt lights
that flash
with the sunlight.
This can't be done,
of course, without white,
Titanium White,
which sounds to me
like machinery,
or a colossus,
color larger
than itself,
the soul of all light.
I paint in my kitchen,
watch the bird
from my window, and
from where I stand,
sunlight sings
down the side of his body,
limns his yellow beak,
and I know
the white is wrong,
wrong. White
is the sum of no color.
White vibrates
like life only as light,
when white
is all color collected.
Blind in its glare,
we lose
sight of everything,
anyway,
the bird, this brush,
me, and this season,
whistling away
into a song so bright
the poet can't sing it,
the painter can't sketch it.
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