Steve McCurry’s exhibit at the museum is winding down, set to close on May 8, but it still inspires all who see it.  New Jersey poet Bruce Niedt found this photograph of a painted man in India inspiring while visiting North Carolina last fall.  He was in Hickory for the Face to Face in the Foothills Poetry Gathering.  Art of Poetry’s Kelly DeMaegd read his poem at the March 19 Art of Poetry event. Photo courtesy of Roger and Ginny Sanford.

 
Bruce Niedt
HOLI DAY
after “Hindu Men Participate in the Festival of Holi” by Steve McCurry

Ever since Krishna
painted Radha’s face
to make them a couple,

there has been love in colors,
and we celebrate this every spring
with water-spray and powder-clouds,

everyone doused in blues and oranges,
purples and pinks. All in red, we bear
our green comrade over our heads,

offering him as the color of spring,
of the young, unripe and innocent,
of peace, of “go”.

But truth be known, by the end of the day
all the colors will be mingled,
his green with our reds

and the rest of the rainbow into some muddy,
indistinct hue that makes us all,
from Brahmin on down, alike.