Yes, Vincent, I have your number. I’ve read
about spicules, seen bright, four-color slides
of their exploding spirals—orange-red,
curling tubes of blazing plasma. They glide
like brilliant brushstrokes throughout the solar
corona. When Father Secchi spied them
from the Vatican observatory,
I’ve a hunch you read about them, too. Then
formed your own images, saturating
sower’s sky with fire, or starry night’s cones
with ghostlike blue-white, oils imitating
chromospheres you could only envision.
Call back, please. Tell me how these paintings, depths
of passion, flamed just months before your death.
Roger Armbrust
November 2, 2008
