after Van Gogh

Indigo and orange river and the women, kneeling. White where there might be clothes. The act of bending, to wash away. Sienna riverbanks. A lone figure on the bridge. It is gratifying to draw a human being something alive. Lifted into the cool of sky we, the watchers, are already future and looking back. What is between blue and violet is still, in the time of the painting. There is misery somewhere but not here, in the colors I mean to hold and can’t keep.