Magenta

Magenta

is the dressing-gown I pounced on

in a sale, synthetic but soft as moss furring

damp stones in a wood. It’s my keeper on a cold night.

Just to look at it is to be kindled,

to know life needn’t be dull as drizzle

on bleached leaves or a river too muddied to welcome sky,

to know life is more than unhappiness

poured into a phone, than pain nailing itself

into the spine, destruction exploding in a busy street.

I search out magenta in cushions,

cardigans, cyclamens and discover

it has existed for aeons in the universe, is the colour

of the smallest dwarves. On our planet

we only found a dye to produce it after

the battle near the North Italian town that’s its namesake.

Last week I heard magenta in the finale

of Mahler’s second symphony when the rumble

of kettle drums accelerated, voices rose from brass mouths,

when the cymbals swept together,

then separated, bloomed like giant flowers.

Today, I’ve come upon magenta in its glory in a gallery

where so many have begged

to be let in the doors are now open far into

the night—it’s the earthy floor where fellowships of logs,

bold in their ochres and mustards,

are following a coral road between blue trunks

to the horizon. It’s that rugged totem stump standing

like an old man at the junction of the road

and a track leading to fields pink as paradise.

I can’t decide which route to take, in my head travel both.

Myra Schneider

(The painting described is David Hockney’s Winter Timber.)