The Blue Wave
‘Do it now, say it now, don’t be afraid.’
Wilhelmina Barnes-Graham
Your house with its lovely
light studio overlooking the sea
is sold, you work dispersed.
But in my head there’s a painting
done in your nineties
when just to lift your arm
was an effort: a single brave
upwards sweep with a wide
distemper brush so loaded
with paint the canvas filled
with the glistening blue wall
of a wave before it falls.
About this poem
In 2015 the Scottish Poetry Library commissioned poets Douglas Dunn, Vicki Feaver and Diana Hendry to write on the theme of age. Their poems appear together in Second Wind as part of the Saltire Society’s pamphlet series. The project as a whole is supported by The Baring Foundation, as one of its series of ‘Late Style’ artist commissions.
