Chrome yellow
Lines of poplars flank a muddy road
leaves on the turn, branches showing black,
clouds portending storm, late afternoon.
A hunched figure, maybe still, maybe
shuffling forward through the rutted mud.
That is what he left behind: ochre
and brown, clouded light, an avenue
of poplars leading south to sunlight
bright, eye-hurting. Only chrome yellow
could do it justice. No browns. No mud.
And this is what he came to, Van Gogh,
with easel and paints near Saint Rémy
where two Lombardy poplars grow apart
rooted in the dry cracks of limestone,
mistral smearing clouds across the sky.
Chlorophyll
Here, too, is limestone country, thrust through
with hills of hornfels, caves underneath.
White men came with sheep and claimed country
never theirs, just as they had at home.
Their hard god came with them, lived in stone
and his ministers were given land
for a living, too much to be worked.
They planted foreign trees, foreign grass.
Bright English greens spread on limestone soil,
thirsty oaks, crowded elms and poplars
standing alone, like this one, green leaves
above, green grass below, branches black.
Like Van Gogh’s trees, this one grows apart
from itself, siphoning up water,
and frames an entry to somewhere else.
Carotenoid
So many elsewheres. You can drive south
leaving limestone behind, heading up
through basalt country in the autumn.
Trees flare gas yellow beside the road.
Autumn brings out the hidden colour,
always there, that the slow withdrawal
of chlorophyll reveals. Another
month and leaves will unclench, drop away,
bare black branches will reach up, waiting.
Or where I grew up, each autumn brings
that slow reveal: orange, red, yellow.
The road north climbs, bordered by two lines
of poplars, then turns eastward. This year,
coming back south, yellow poplars gave
grudging welcome to something like home.
© Martin Dolan, 2025
