Purple (January)

Purple of Hermannsburg attracted attention. The purple of London were sceptical, mountains could not be that purple. Best purple prose writers paled with disbelief. Royalty had apoplectics. Bishops turned purple. Cognoscenti, fed on diets of purple people-eater movies, went looking for something more mauvie. But Namatjira sales were steady (as The New Yorker likes to say). Purple outback had its place, though London had no idea this was only the beginning. Only the beginning for walls, vivid as January. When they step through the gallery door, purple pinot-sippers gaze upon Hermannsburg presents, take stock, search for words, test their superlatives.