It's just a square, a window
with a rock like frame
in a white wall smeared lilac,
but, such memories
are tucked in there.
Rothko has visited
to breathe his weight
into the darkness.
Here lives a square of night
that I once painted, but
with a moon and pollarded tree
when I was lighter
in heart and body.
Here rests my wine-scented nights
with summer balls,
moth and blossom.
Here is a piny night in California,
or freezing sky with a stone comet
measured from a Devon village,
or an ink of an African night
with snakes in the grass
and dogs on the streets;
These are some darks
from a thousand, glazed violet,
where midnights grew velvet.