The Rothko Chapel, by Darryl Whetter

Rothko Chapel, by Mark Rothko (USA, b. Latvia). 1970.

The Rothko Chapel

hurried art and architecture to the church on time.
scorched his palette, held
this wake of colour

epicentre, particle accelerator, octagonal
compression chamber

his colour field paintings finally site-specific,
lowered from the screened ceiling
on platters of daylight louvers

a painter known for tweaking
the gallery lights,
the quiet purist who would debate
line and hanging to the quarter inch

career-high commission
and black, empurpled swan song

insatiably dark triptychs march the long walls,
oil money’s blackened air raid windows,
the smoke filled portholes of a plunging jet

five (final) panels of a mauve
unseen in his oeuvre
centre the apse triptych and brighten
each corner. lavender boxers.
moan punctuation, mauve
opposites of white space

churning waterfalls in a lost
mountain city of pain. a tumbling
harvest of bruised grapes
for ethereal wine
​
a single canvas hangs
between the humble entrances.
top-heavy with black and framed
with the brown of dried blood

the slaughtered hide of Lascaux’s bulls,
a mahogany screen door

into the abyss

​Darryl Whetter

Darryl Whetter is the author of three books of fiction and two poetry collections. His novels include the bicycle odyssey The Push & the Pull and the multi-generational smuggling epic Keeping Things Whole. He is the inaugural Programme Leader of the new MA Creative Writing programme at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore. www.darrylwhetter.ca