In how many ways
can Nature say bland?
How many greys
in March’s wasteland?
Thus the creek queried
churning leaden and duller
in sighs winter-wearied
“My kingdom for some color!”
With apologies to Shakespeare.
Yes, dear reader, this IS a color shot. Taken yesterday. Alas.
I’ve seen this before yet I haven’t
and so it makes me think twice
is the matter of braking
a wasteful unmaking
or a sagacious piece of advice?
Thanks again to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives.
I think on me
these colors would be
aesthetically illegal
but on the lily
high-headed and frilly
they are positively regal.
More thanks to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives.
What a vast expanse of bland
with nothing to enthrall
instant anesthetic for
a Tiffany or Chagall.
But just ahead the playground
with voices shrill and high
the color spills in laugh and screech
the ear sees
not the eye.
NOTE TO SELF
Look up
while it’s there.
Seek words
in the air
to memorialize
how color shrieves
the dying year
as all the sun of summer
bleeds through the leaves
to wooded bier.
Grounded eyes
cannot eulogize.
