Essay and photos by Jonathan Shipley
“I really just want to be warm yellow light that pours over everyone I love.” —Conor Oberst
The August morning comes on quiet. The only sound: the light breeze through the fields. The sun yawns, awakening the birds nestled in the reeds – eastern kingbird, field sparrow, eastern wood pewee – causing them to sing their little songs of praise.
Another day, they chirp, neck full-throated, to be able to live here in this marshland.The sun through the early melodies, that golden disc, touches the nearby flowers that are all reaching for it – coneflower, wild parsnip, goldenrod. The day is beginning in Madison in its soft yellow splendor.
There is a network of caves near the French village of Montignac. It is called Lascaux. More than 600 paintings cover the caves’ walls and ceiling. There is one of a horse, painted with yellow ochre pigment. The yellow horse painting is 17,000 years old. One of the first paintings ever created on earth … and it’s yellow.
In Biblical symbolism, the color yellow often symbolizes the glory of God, a divine presence, a heavenly radiance.The day is beginning in Madison and the morning’s sunlight turns Cherokee marsh aglow.
In August of 1888, Vincent Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo, “I’m painting with the gusto of a Marseillais eating bouillabaisse, which won’t surprise you when it’s a question of painting large sunflowers.” He continued, “I’d like to do a decoration for the studio,” one he shared with Paul Gauguin. “Nothing but large sunflowers.”
In Arles, Van Gogh painted flower after flower – canvases resplendent with yellows. These priceless canvases can now be found in galleries that span the globe. There’s one in Amsterdam. Another in Philadelphia. There’s one in Munich. Another in Tokyo.
The sunflowers here at the Marsh are living art. So are the goldenrod stems bending in the breeze. So, too, the black-eyed susans.
“All in the Downs the fleet was moored / The streamers waving in the wind / when black-eyed Susan came aboard / O, where shall I my true-love find?”
Those are the first four lines of the poem “Black-Eyed Susan” by John Gay (1685-1732). It is likely the origin for the flower’s name. “O Susan, Susan, lovely dear / My vows shall ever true remain / Let me kiss off that falling tear / We only part to meet again.”
One, wandering the marshlands, steps upon verse, becomes lost in the rhyme of stem and bloom, sky and soil. Meets the day in gold.
Goldfinches announce your arrival to the marsh. So, too, the common yellowthroats. Finding purchase on thistle and branch, the birds let the day know that what you want, what they want, what everything wants – tree and pond, turtle and flower, squirrel and leaf – is to have a warm yellow light pouring over them.
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