Ocean Park #60

Suppose I were to step into a blue painting—a Diebenkorn, maybe, from his Ocean Park series. 

Suppose I were to bathe in its countless layers, to allow myself to sink to the bottom. Suppose I were to discover that though blue holes do exist, much of the ocean’s floor is navigable. 

Suppose I were to visit this painting in a gallery. Suppose it were to draw me in immediately—past the Pollocks, the de Koonings, the Klines. The illuminated Albers, portrait of the expanding field. 

Suppose I were to resist at first—as though approaching a stranger at a party but not wanting to be seen doing so. 

Up close, I can see the faint lines beneath the brushstrokes. That green-lit sea, glowing through.

There is a kind of blue that, in order to see it, you have to look away.

The blue inside the blue, not blue at all but a coppery green verdigris, whose neat geometry remains visible through layers of paint, its symmetries and planes intersecting and abutting each other.

Greenish blue, grayish blue, Berlin blue.

Something in the throat, wanting to lift into flight. Verditter blue, a blue that must be carefully listened for. Bright and lyrical, with a higher proportion of tin. 

What could a person possibly invent to contain all these overlapping fields of light? It seems impossible, and yet there it is, sky inside sea inside more sea, dimensions opening further, the farther away you get.

In its smudgy brushwork, I hear the rushing of water, or maybe wings—regions of green, showing through like feeling, overlaid and contradictory.

Berlin blue, mixed with emerald green and a little white. Lapis lazuli, fennel flower, azure, apple green.

An algal bloom, shimmering in air. Suppose I were to hold its sound in my mouth without swallowing, to lift it to your lips in a shallow dish, knowing you might not like its bitter tincture. 

To allow the thin film of light to swirl slowly toward you, face incandescent with longing. 

Hyacinth, flax flower, purple anemone.

Suppose I were to swim through its cloudy layers like a scuba diver, scouring the sea floor for a lost object or the remains of a sunken ship.

Broken glass, rubber bands, crumpled wrappers, and discarded sponges. Blue marbles, pieces of rubble, bus tickets, cicada wings, bottle caps.

Suppose I were to gather all these bits of blue, like a bowerbird—indigo pits, glass beads, cyanotypes, blue doors, blue ceilings, blue shutters—and once I had done that, simply sat, waiting for something to happen. 

If my life flooded with light in a hillside chapel, blue-tinted glassstaining my arms,the backs of my hands. Face, lips—all of it, blue. 

If it were to carry me, a tide of blue—all I’ve ever wanted to say: I love you. I miss you. When will I see you. 

Like standing in a field as it fills with the rush of wings, until all I see is blue, mirroring the sky in its vastness.

Its voice from all around, as if from the air itself, godlike, like a voice inside us, speaking both to and within us.

A box inside a box inside another box. And in every box, the endlessness of sky. Its blue infinitude.  

[Text adapted from: Celeste Ng, Roni Horn, Louise Glück, Nature’s Palette: A Color Reference System from the Natural World,  Jennifer S. Cheng, Yanyi, Chiyuma Elliott, Online Encyclopedia of Organ Stops, Jane Mead, Maggie Nelson, Elizabeth Willis, Jason Moran and Alicia Hall Moran]

Wave Organ

&  one day    walking  the  shell line  with  a friend    she might  enter  a new  form  
of  intimacy   not  made of  words    but the steady rush of  ocean  on shore  where  
she might  find  the  tiny  emptied  husks   of  crustaceans   a papery  translucence    
& for  days  later    she might  hear  the waves   breaking  in  her inner  ear   beneath  
her   feet    the sand’s  gritty   clench  & release   both  of  them    barefoot now  
slipping a  little    in the sand     sneakers doubled  in one  hand   the other   tucked  
into  a pocket   for warmth    between  them  something   she  struggles   to  find 
a  word  for   not silence     but  a  nameless    quiet  on the inside   the  secret  inner     
life   of organs   contracting &   expanding     a work  they share     each contained  
in the gentle   privacy of the  self      &  later  she might  pick up  a sand  dollar   
wet  sand   puckered  around  the little marks   her fingertips   leave  on the  beach   
its delicate   veiny  blue   making it  plant  & animal  both   & the silence   unfold-
ing within   &  between  them    the tide’s pull  & retreat     waves  skating   across
the surface     the  sky’s milky  blue    a  hue that  spreads  &   spreads

          the endless    treasure

                      ocean

                          the       shimmer

 a      work

                                she might find

             inside

                                       they

       share

this  feeling      that   opens 

                       between     them

a  nameless   quiet

                              her     

        delicate         veiny 

                                                        life

                   un fold in g  

Blue

If I followed the pavement  past shipyards  & piers

blue gray  water   &  the indigo  grey  of a heron 

long  thin crest   &  pink & yellow beak

If I stopped to read a map  of the region’s waterways—   tributaries 

dams   rivers  & streams      lapis lazuli    

speckled  cobalt      viridian     all those blues    

If I collected  & brought them  to you—  

golden poppies   & purple buds  curling 

into pink—  pollen-spilled  petals   heart-

shaped leaves   & the whole harbor singing    

spring—      greeny gray  water  & a ship  suspended

in air       tell  me   what gift  will   appear

          As

                     I find

                                                  the

                                          path

            blossom

  the music  meets me

          every step   of the way

redbud    & crabapple     wind-chimes  & redbrick

refinery   &  that clear icy blue    unspooling—

a landscape           for two

though  I see it  every day     it astonishes 

&  delights  me     anew   

[Text adapted from: Nature’s Palette: A Color Reference System from the Natural World by Patrick Baty and The Letters of Fanny Hensel to Felix Mendelssohn, translated by Marcia J. Citron]

*

Mia Ayumi Malhotra is the author of Mothersalt (Alice James Books, 2025) and Isako Isako, California Book Award finalist and winner of the 2017 Alice James Award, Nautilus Gold Award, National Indie Excellence Award, and Maine Literary Award. She is also the author of the chapbook Notes from the Birth Year (Bateau Press, 2022). Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including The Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Indiana Review, The Gate of Memory: Poems by Descendants of Nikkei Wartime Incarceration, and They Rise Like a Wave: An Anthology of Asian American Women Poets. A dedicated member of the Choir of St. Paul’s Burlingame, Mia’s commissioned texts have been performed as choral anthems throughout the United States and the United Kingdom. Currently she is a 2025-2026 Distinguished Visiting Writer at Saint Mary’s College of California and at work on a manuscript about music and the interior life.