This I would dye for

Sometimes it’s mud

Sometimes it’s stone

Some comes from long dead

Egyptian king’s bones

Which then may be mixed

With the sweat of crushed flax

And thinned with pine resin

Or thickened with wax.

It’s slathered on fabric

Coated with collagen

Of boiled bunny rabbits

(Who will not hop again)

And it somehow pulls out

Bright new worlds from the cloth

Landscapes and portraits

And abstracts and froth.

Luminous, glorious

This tint without taint

Is my greatest obsession:

A glob of oil paint.