Seeing Red

I mixed color today, mostly reds, choosing 
from carmine and ruby, vermilion, and scarlet, 
cerise and claret, while thoughts about blood red 
and barn red and ox-blood and the Red Army rose up. 
There’s Republican red and Harvard’s crimson,
the planet mars and periods–a crescendo  
that took me to Rothko’s painful red stains.


                                                                  Years ago 
I went to the Rothko chapel in Houston, 
(yes, he has a chapel) and as a comfort, 
the guard said people often cry before 
the enormous blood blue canvases. 
It’s quite normal, he told me.

Stephanie Trenchard is a visual artist and poet living in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin where she shares a hot glass studio with her husband. Her sculpture is held in museums and in private collections. Her primary medium is cast glass to which she includes sculpted narratives.” I love to pour the words into the forms just as I pour glass into molds, always checking the temperature, and embed meaningful content.” Her poetry has been published by Dillydoun Review, The Closed Eye Open (upcoming) and on Writers.com.