“I only wish I had any color to make them blacker.”

      — J.M.W. Turner

Close your eyes and you see black —

black sails preening — but open them

and all is aflame, flames your flowers,

your element. You have all the colors

you need to start your fires.

You burn marble halls and slow rivers,

hay-filled silos and harvest moons

to see them perfect

in their state of light and exaltation,

their ecstasy of smoke,

before that moment when fire

burning fire consumes itself, leaving

but a black dress, untorched.

 

— Euphony, 2010