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Tincture

A poem by Brian Campbell

image for Tincture

I
slash indigo, storm orange and yellows, dash crimson—
a single squiggle of black Buddhist script
running

d
    o
  w
n

t
  h
e

m
  i
d
  d
l
e.

You
saffron flames
an acrylic
this is it!
streaks of emerald
blending into gold. . .

Together we pool deep deep blue
and from the blinding white above, shower
turquoise, mauves, hues of silver leaves.
Then weary of intimations of sprinkling rain on sea,
brush waves into branches, net the drizzle in tendrils,
flare drops into fugitive night moths, stars. . .

"Tincture" first appeared in a substantially different version in the July 2004 issue of New Century

Copyright 2006 by Brian Campbell

Brian Campbell Brian writes:
My partner and I went to a painting workshop that was offered for free as a part of Montreal’s 2003 Journée de culture (Culture Day) festivities. Neither of us had painted with acrylics before: we were rank amateurs, with nothing more than our sensibilities and great enthusiasm to apply. "Tincture" celebrates the colour and light of that experience.

Brian Campbell’s first book is Guatemala and Other Poems (Window Press, Toronto, 1994). His poetry has appeared in Grain, The New Quarterly, Prairie Fire, Nth Position, and Dusie, among others. Undressing the Night, his translation of selected poems of the Nicaraguan-Canadian poet Francisco Santos, has recently been published by Editorial Lunes, Costa Rica. Campbell lives, teaches, and practices Nichiren Daishonin Buddhism in Montreal. More information can be found on his blog, Out of the Woodwork (www.briancampbell.blogspot.com), as well as his website, www.briancampbell.org.

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