Blue Period

As in Pablo Picasso’s depressive art, 
the long path through a winter dark 
with anguish, despair and frailty
is a spectrum of indigo melancholy:
from blue-tinged ice, cobalt and navy 
to the hopefulness of aquamarine,
it echoes our blind faith in the seasons.

And then, suddenly, pieces of sky drop to earth
in hosts of bluebells and frothy forget me nots 
that dance on breezes of azure breath.
Thousands of flowery Rorschach inkblots
stained with the remains of winter’s wash 
are touched up with much brighter hues,
and spring pink emerges from a period of blue.

Kim M. Russell, 4th May 2022

This is a poem I wrote for Globe Soup’s May Micro Writing Competition, which had the theme of ‘blue’. Coincidentally, on the Thursday before last, my husband and I visited the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich, where we walked around the statue park and viewed their Picasso exhibition, with examples from his blue and rose periods.