The last blue through

my kitchen window

is indigo. Before a crow

swallows the sapphire

in the sky’s dark bowl

and everything goes black,

it goes indigo, gets an

ultramarine sheen to it,

a nebulous blue and black stain,

like a painting by Rothko

or a trombone and cello duet

that makes the wild iris moan

deep in its throat, moan

like a pilot light

inside a dark stove.

The same indigo in the eye

of a cormorant

nodding on a snow bank in Antarctica

glows in the feathers of a bunting

calling from the forest edge

of my back yard.

You know the indigo,

like a blueberry, solo

in an ebony bowl, 

before the kitchen goes black

and night takes back

even that indigo.

 

From Even That Indigo (Hip Pocket Press).

This poem first appeared in Ragazine.com.

Used here with the author’s permission.