The Rothko Paintings

Currents around a pole, or a fire

damping to stillness,

they conduce to our calm in their process,

terminal, voiceless.

Unbound, yet selves in the exigence

of merely having to be,

like a new map, these continents

explore us to the sea.

LYRIC (ll)

This house is shrieking with consent,

unfetter the air:

braced walls explode, windows

rumple and spray like sea, bricks

trumpet to the sun, floors swell

and tear, like flowers bubbling their hearts'

grave wine in dusty sills, until

day's heat is done,

the chains

flutter to rest and through the dark, contention

falls on the house like peace, like air.