The Fields of Joan Mitchell.

Poems.

The Fields of Joan Mitchell.

They are not landscapes, not in the way

we think of fields and trees, the earth

settling into form beneath the sky.

No, these are storms—wild, untamed,

the brushstrokes slashing, twisting,

pulling the eye into the chaos of color,

the violence of beauty.

Here is the green of memory,

splintered, fractured by light,

and there, the blue of longing,

a depth that cannot be measured,

only felt in the marrow,

in the pulse of something unnamed.

The canvases hold the weight

of a thousand unsaid things,

the spaces between the strokes

thick with what she couldn’t speak,

what she could only pour out,

layer by layer, paint

becoming blood, becoming breath.

You stand before them, and it’s like

standing in the middle of the storm,

the wind tearing at your clothes,

the rain needling your skin,

and yet there’s a calm, too,

a strange stillness in the center of it all,

where everything falls away,

and you are left with the raw truth

of color, of form, of feeling.

It’s as if she captured the soul

of the landscape, not its face,

but its essence, the way it lives

and dies and is reborn

in the space of a single moment,

a single brushstroke.

You want to reach out,

to touch the paint, to feel

the ridges where her hand

pressed too hard, where the paint

is thick and furious, like the heart

that beats too fast, too loud.

But you don’t. Instead, you let it wash over you,

this flood of light and shadow,

and you think of how she saw the world,

not as it is, but as it feels,

the wild, relentless beauty of it,

the fields of color stretching

endlessly before her,

a landscape no hand could tame.

---

Skin.

There is a map written on your skin,

a landscape I’ve traveled

with trembling hands, tracing

the rise and fall of every ridge, every scar

etched into your flesh.

Underneath the touch, a story

unfolds—of nights spent in silence,

of breath held too long,

of the way your body shudders

when I find the tender places.

I’ve memorized the constellations

of your freckles, the way

they spread like stars across your back,

guiding me through the dark,

a path I’ve walked so many times,

I could find it with my eyes closed.

Your skin is a canvas of longing,

soft and rough in turns,

and I have pressed my lips to it,

leaving invisible marks,

a history of desire written

in the language of touch.

Sometimes, in the half-light,

I watch you sleep,

your chest rising and falling,

the curve of your shoulder

a quiet invitation,

a plea that needs no words.

And I think of how fragile it all is—

the heat that pools between us,

the fleeting moments when your skin

is my refuge, my only truth.

But there is always an end,

a moment when the touch

must pull away, when the body cools

and the distance returns,

like a tide that can’t be held back.

Still, I linger, my hand

resting on your arm,

as if I could anchor myself

to this moment, to the feel of your skin

beneath my fingers, warm, alive,

and fleeting as the night.

---

The Last Days of August.

The days grow thin, stretched

like the final notes of a song

that lingers too long, unmoored

from its meaning.

The cicadas hum a dirge for summer,

their relentless thrum pressing

against the silence between us.

We sit on the porch, apart,

watching the light fade

from the edges of the sky,

as if it, too, is tired of holding on.

You reach for my hand, but the gesture

is hollow now, a habit we’ve yet to break.

The warmth of your skin

is a memory—familiar, comforting,

but distant, like the scent of ripe peaches

from a tree long since felled.

I remember the first days,

when the sun was heavy, merciless,

and we were new, unburdened

by the weight of knowing each other.

Your laugh was quick then,

your touch like fire, a spark

that promised more than this quiet fading.

Now the leaves are starting to curl,

their edges browned, brittle

as the words we no longer say.

The garden is overgrown,

the roses gone to seed, their heads bowed

as if in prayer or surrender.

Soon the air will cool, and you will leave,

taking the last warmth of summer with you.

The house will empty itself of you,

your shoes by the door, your voice in the hall,

each echo falling like ash.

I think of the sunflowers,

how they’ve turned their faces down,

resigned to the coming dark,

and I wonder if they feel the loss

as I do, this slipping away,

this quiet end.

I wanted to believe in endless summers,

in love that could outlast the season.

But the light wanes, and the sky

is streaked with the first blush of autumn.

Soon, we will be strangers again,

sharing only the memory of heat,

the ghost of the sun on our skin.

Thank you for reading. If you’d like to see some of my art works and other things I make, you can subscribe to my other Substack too.