Suite in Red, by Hope Coulter

Red Azaleas Singing and Dancing Rock and Roll Music, by Alma Thomas (USA) 1976

Suite in Red

Red is the engine of pattern and feeling, a
cardinal mosaic of brush-strokes and
paving stone, scarlet and white in a closely packed dance.
 
When the rhythm gets looser, the silhouettes part
and the feet shuffle backward, the hips bob and bump
so the air can get in, so the laughter can breathe.
 
And last of all the pieces move away;
the bits of tile break off, and scatter out
beyond the bounds of field, of view, of ken.

Hope Coulter

Hope Coulter loves wandering through art museums and trying to capture some essence of what she sees in words. Her work often involves the visual arts; for example, her poetry collection The Wheel of Light (Brickhouse Books, 2015) opens with a seven-part poem about a California painter at work early in the morning. Coulter teaches and directs the Hendrix-Murphy Foundation Programs in Literature and Language at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas.