WATERCOLOUR by Theo Dorgan
I watch as you work the colour on soft paper,
watch as the wind and water come and go
eddying and gusting between mind and hand
as forms come clear; your eye follows the brush.
Wash after wash, the shifting sway of thought.
Wash after wash, the sound of thought in silence
until something comes clear and you stand back,
surprised and not mistaken: now you've found it,
what you'd already guessed was already there.
So with our lives: the colours sift through wind
and water as we walk the Burrow Beach,
hung on air for us, blessed and unsurprised
at what we find there always: that quiet weight
of breath and gesture, the shifting sway of thought,
the brushstroke of whatever makes our world.
My life has been all colour since that day
you wrote your address for me on soft paper,
the forms of our promised future coming clear.
