Blue makes no noise

excerpt from A matter of blue (poems of Jean-Michel Maulpoix translated by Dawn Cornelio) - Boa editions publisher.

 

 Blue makes no noise.

It is a timid color, without ulterior motives, forewarning or plan; it does not leap out at the eye like yellow or red do, but rather draws it in, taming it little by little, letting it come unhurriedly, so that it sinks in and drowns in it, unaware.

Blue is a color that invites departure.

A color to die in, a color that frees, the very color of the soul after it has shed body, after the blood has been spurted out, the entrails emptied, all sorts of cavities, moving out the furniture of our thoughts once and for all.

Indefinitely, blue escapes.

To tell the truth, it is not a color. A tonality rather, a climate, a special resonance of the air. Amassed clarity, a hue born of emptiness added to emptiness, as changing and transparent in man's head as in the skies.

The air we breathe, the appearance of emptiness that our fingers move across, the space we cross is nothing but this earthly blue, invisible from being so close to us, so integral to our body, clothing our gestures and voices. Present even in the bedroom, with all the shutters closed and lamps off,imperceptible clothing of our life.


© translated by Dawn Cornelio, from "Une histoire de bleu", a book of J.M.Maulpoix published at Mercure de France in 1992.

 

A painting of Dominique Penloup about "Une histoire de bleu"