Mark Rothko Song

The blue it speaks so full. It's like a beauty one can barely stand. Or too much things dropped in your hand. And there's a green like the peace in your heart, sometimes. Painted underneath the sheets of ashy snow. And there's a blue like where the urban angels go, very bright. Now the Calder mobile tips a biomorphic sphere. Then it swings its dangling pieces round to other paintings here. Your behavior is so male. It's like you can't explain yourself to me. I think I'll ask Renoir to tea. For his flowers are as real as they are, all the time. And the sunlight sets the furniture aglow. It's a pleasant time as far as people go, how far do they go? Well his roses are perfect and his words have no wings. I know what he can give me and I like to know these things. I met her at the funeral. She said I don't know what he meant to me. I just know he affected me. An effect not unlike his art, I believe. The service starts and we are in the know. He had so much to say and more to show, and ain't that true of life? So we weep for a person who lived at great cost. And we barely knew his powers till we sensed what we had lost. A friend and I in a museum room. She says, "Look at Mark Rothko's side. Did you know about his suicide? Some folks were born with a foot in the grave, but not me, of course." And she smiles as if to say we're in the know. Then she names a coffee place where we can go, uptown. Now the painting is desperate, but the crowds wash away. In a world of kind pedestrians who've seen enough today. --- Mark Rothko Song - Dar Williams