Colour Field, by Jane Frank

Untitled (Red Over Dark Blue on Grey), by Mark Rothko (USA, b. Latvia) 1965

Colour Field
 
The sky is a burnt Rothko red
against the black hill
 
a region of cruel colour 
in a darkening world
 
but it doesn’t help to think 
about 70s pastels
 
the yellow crepe paper of bikes
dressed for a parade
 
or the baby blue ribbons in
plaited hair
 
In the field every blade of grass
is marked, unmown
 
a blurred block with a ragged
edge — the sun was
 
a peppery ten cent piece right 
from its 5am start
 
melting the skin on my fingers, 
my tongue. Tomorrow
 
might be cobalt or a menacing 
green: the drama of
 
the day will drop like a screen,
occasional flickers
 
of humour at the field’s vibrating
edges when my youngest
 
son tells a joke or the English lose
at cricket
 
LED lights tint the hallway from 
teenage rooms: 
 
muffled music plays all night. The 
stars burn from the safety 
 
of lightyears through the narrow 
prism of glass 
 
high in the wall. Even the dog 
is restless: his garnet
 
eyes are knowing in the matte 
navy of fiery night air
 
I stroke his fur, try and guess what
tomorrow’s colour field will be

Jane Frank

Jane Frank's latest chapbook is Wide River (Calanthe Press, 2020). Her poems have won awards and been widely published both in Australia and internationally, appearing most recently in Authora Australis, Westerly, Plumwood Mountain, StylusLit, Live Encounters, Meridian and a number of anthologies including Poetry for the Planet, The Incompleteness Book II, The Newcastle Poetry Prize Anthology and Not Very Quiet: The Anthology. Originally from the Fraser Coast region of Queensland, Jane lives and writes in Brisbane and teaches creative writing at Griffith University.