SINGER: Dar Williams

SONG:Mark Rothko Song

The blue it speaks so full
it's like the 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
printed 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 but more to show, and ain't that true of life?
so we weep for a person who lived at great cost
yet we barely knew his powers till we sensed that 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 crowd of kind pedestrians who've seen enough today.