Synesthesia

(for P. Gauguin)

 

Color has a music of its own. 
Blood red, brassy yellow, limpid blue. 
Listen, you can hear it in your bones.

 

What good are salons, manifestos? 
Open the mind’s ear, let the brush flow. 
Color has a music of its own.

 

We seek comfort in riches and routine, 
But soon grew tired of their measure, 
Never feeling them in our bones.

 

Marriage, relationships, too, can fail, 
Sending us in search of a paradise lost 
Where color has a music of its own.

 

Pink-sand beaches, crimson seas,

Nut-brown maidens, Jesus on his knees — 
He felt them in his bones.

 

The mystery of Creation,
The blessèd release that is Death;
Color has a music of its own,
You can hear it in your bones.