There was a moment that spring

when the past lay at our feet

and the vast and terrible

emptiness of the future

looked like promising territory, what

was possible filled the sky

a blind girl in a movie

she could not herself visualize

(poor blind girl — they tell me it's

a good movie — she's forever

diminished by virtue

of living stuck inside

the hothouse ipecac green room

of its thin unchanging twenty-four

frames per moment) asked

what is the color green

a fast moving thunderstorm

a portent of the artist

sans suffering somehow sin

sadness as if a palette

all one color could triumph

against the mat knife, against

the barking crush of people

who want exactly what you

want, who demand it, who pound

the table with their shoes, there

is only one and they want

it, be an artist in the face

of that, but a soft rain and

the green of new grass can turn

even the jaded, even

those stiff with envy, out from

the trenches, they'll doff their drab

for clothes to do the emperor

proud — who is this in my empire,

who wears the green hat today,

who earns her green gown, can one

like his greens more than I, perhaps

we won't need an umpire on this

emerald diamond stream of green

backs, look, even the sky is green.