Green and Blue, 1957 after Mark Rothko

by Caley O’Dwyer

Blue opens
until we no longer know
where sadness began.

Sorrow follows
through green fields
above the sky.

The light has changed
to shine through
our origins,

which lie so far South
it is nearly dark here.
There is only

the green calm
the day’s submerged in
before the tornado,

before the houses lift
and whirl in the sky,
emptying their dressers

of bobby pins and parts
of toy racetracks.
Later, a news crew

will survey the town,
saying, “and that’s
what I call devastation.

…Back to you, Bob,”
as our lot deepens
in the blown out windows

of out-of-service
filling stations.
The mockingbird

refigures, learning
to live forever
in the blue field,

laughing and flying
into the laughter
that is so near

the heart of pain
its silence
is a blue hum,

the ringing note
inside grief
that will make our town rise.

*Photo courtesy marchorowitz.