To Make Various Sorts of Black

According to The Craftsman’s Handbook, chapter XXXVII
“Il Libro dell’ Arte” by Cennino d’Andrea Cennini

who tells us there are several kinds of black colours.
First, there is a black derived from soft black stone.
It is a fat colour; not hard at heart, a stone unctioned.

Then there is a black that is obtained from vine twigs.
Twigs that choose to abide on the true vine
offering up their bodies at the last to be burned,

then quenched and worked up, they can live again
as twig of the vine black; not a fat, more of a lean
colour, favoured alike by vinedressers and artists.

There is also the black that is scraped from burnt shells. Markers of Atlantic’s graves.
Black of scorched earth, of torched stones of peach;twisted trees that bore strange fruit.

And then there is the black that is the source of light
from a lamp full of oil such as any thoughtful guest
waiting for bride and groom who cometh will have.

A lamp you light and place underneath – not a bushel –
but a good clean everyday dish that is fit for baking.
Now bring the little flame of the lamp up to the under

surface of the earthenware dish (say a distance of two
or three fingers away) and the smoke that emits
from that small flame will struggle up to strike at clay.

Strike till it crowds and collects in a mess or a mass;
now wait, wait a while please, before you sweep this
colour – now sable velvet soot – off onto any old paper

or consign it to shadows, outlines, and backgrounds.
Observe: it does not need to be worked up nor ground;
it is just perfect as it is. Refill the lamp, Cennini says.

As many times as the flame burns low, refill it.

To Make Various Sorts of Black
To Make Various Sorts of Black
Reporting Back to Queen Isabella
You Should Go to Toledo
New Sketches of Spain
O Africans in the Plazas of Madrid
Bookmarks for Eyes
O Lisboa
Not Sadness
La Casa Dos Dourados
In a Dream My Mother Says
In a Little Spanish Town I Google Father Louis
In Days of Sail
It Is Sunday in Sevilla
Sintra’s Glorious Eden, After Lord Byron
Postcards to Miles
Spinning in the Head
Ideas of Home

Praise to the Limping Angel
Praise to the Limping Angel
Limonade Shimmer of Autumn Air Over Aroma of Roast Corn
A Cure
A Visit to the East
At Lunch in Les Deux Magots
Remember Us in Motherland

Hope Gardens
Hope Gardens
Quest
Gauguin Girl
Our First Christian Martyr
My Teacher Lena
Reading Through the Wall
Bookmobile Days
Tagore on the Bookmobile
Town Drunk Recites Omar Khayyam
Need

In the Blue Boarding House
In the Blue Boarding House
A Small Blues for Lady’s Gardenia
Dance Card
Otis Ode
Paul Robeson at Athena’s
Red T-Shirt
The Two Sisters Cave
Your Heart

Bye Boonoonoonoos
Bye Boonoonoonoos
One in a Long Line
Our Blessed Country Lady
On Sighting Makak by the Roadside
The Bear
A New State
What Does It Mean
Everyday Revelations
Morning Ballad
A Cleanse Petition
Note to Self
Charlie Chaplin at Golden Clouds
Canto I

Soon It Is Going To Rain Milk
Ruth
Hagar’s Account
Be It Done Unto Me According To Your Word
Soon It Is Going To Rain Milk
St Michael in Sitka
Mr Davis Runs the Voodoo Down
Some of My Worst Wounds Again
From the Bard’s Book of Common Prayer
Upsetter
About the Kind Who Wrestle With You All Night
Some More Things You Do Not Know About Me
I am a Love Siren

Acknowledgements