Workaday stuff first:  you can see this painting above, at the Poetry Foundation, until May 31, and for those like me with workaday hours, you may next visit it on March 16 when the library has Saturday hours (10 am to 2 pm, folks).

This painting is called Minnesota.  It is the centerpiece of a show about Joan Mitchell and her lifelong closeness to poets and poetry.

As you make your way out of the Foundation, the sweet, calm people at the desk keep smiling and offering you things: a 100 Years of Poetry pin, the latest issue of Poetry magazine, a reproduction of the painting that is very nice indeed.

But the most wonderful part is to be in the presence of this painting full of light.  It is almost a physical experience, something you materially feel: this monumental piece, like the northern plains itself, golden, vast, harsh, fecund, purple, majestic – you are in it and it is touching you. It is touching you.