My collaboration with mixed media artist Rebecca Archer produced Rebecca’s Haint Blue painting inspired by my poem, “Haint Blue,” and my poem “Aubade on a Bus” inspired by Rebecca’s painting, “Great Expectations”.
Rebecca Archer’s Great Expectations
—after Maya Angelou
It is sunrise, with hope its arrogant/ rider. How it sprang up, buoyed,/ as I ran to catch the bus and almost/ missed it. There’s a heartbeat in my throat./ Pretend I’m a rain bird or a fire horse/ fueled by miracles. I’m here/ short-winded and salted trying to catch/ my breath standing near the front of the bus/ gripping a handhold that is too high/ for me. I am radiant and impossible,/ and there’s a bird caged in my throat, a poem/ in my pocket that aches to gallop, let go/ the handhold. Pretend I’m a versicle,/ a miracle, the hope that gets you going.
Haint Blue
To free yourself of the haint,
you need to vanquish it.
Paint your porch
the color of water
which is power,
with the might to scatter
blue light to the green
of seawater. But remember
how heavy color can be.
How shades of blue
came from true indigo,
which needed an abundance
of water and limestone
above the bedrock before
it became a cash crop,
which needed to be pounded
and crushed, and dusted
with wood ash to make
blue cakes, which was the currency
of slavery: a bolt of cloth
dyed indigo for one human body.
But mixed with lime and some
white mineral, it resembled water
which haints could not cross over.
Aileen Cassinetto 