Geranium Lake
...all the colours that Impressionism has made
fashionable are unstable, all the more reason
boldly to use them too raw, time will only
soften them too much…
Vincent Van Gogh in a letter
to his brother, Theo)
Who knew that paintings fade
like flowers?
Van Gogh foresaw the unstable
quality of his pigments,
impressed them vividly
onto prepared canvas
as in this picture of a man
walking with a woman,
arms entwined, air
heavy as blue metal,
trees spaced like columns
in a Doric temple, where
undergrowth thick
and wavy as seaweed
blooms with color—
yellow, orange, white—
but that fugitive one,
called spark or geranium lake,
sent from far afield
by Theo, used to make
a brief flowering of pink
has faded to white;
quite the opposite
of the trillium
at the base of my elm
which emerges like snow
but then blushes
each season into oblivion
shaded by showy
day lily, shrouded
afresh in the mystery
of understory:
this the story,
the way of man,
of woman,
of all flesh.
Leslie Schultz
Image: Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, b.1853, d.1890); Undergrowth with Two Figures; 1890; oil on canvas; Bequest of Mary E. Johnston; 1967.1430. (Cincinnati Museum of Art)