Colours that Break Your Heart
Lots of them in nature.
Take the willow leaf, for instance, tentative to emanate in still-chilly-April,
but there it is, that first green, hits you like a breakup letter from your first crush.
Or name any flower, say, California poppy, later in May, but a lilting bronze or libertine tangerine or languid orange that you’d rob a liqour store for.
Or yesterday, you’re walking the recycling to the lane, and a fawn so young she had those beige spots all over her buff coat (oh my!) and every bad thing you ever said about beige? mortal sin! and you swear repentance.
Then there’s the horizons. The kaleidoscopic setup/polychromatic tear-down of every day. Don’t get me started! Creation! Hellofathing!
Or maybe you’re having your second cup, browsing Facebook and Laurie or Len or Rianne or Mandie or your late friend Ginny (who never posted, so you did it for her) or Ellen or Rob, (you know, Shawna’s husband), or somebody,
even a complete stranger,
puts up a painting they’ve just completed
and in there somewhere is this blue, a cerulean blue that sings the note that shoots your soul for a loop and you put your Java down, go cross-legged on your couch, light three candles, bow your head and thank the Lord God for pigment.
Did you know Guy Head (great name) painted Iris? goddess of refracted-rays-of-sun, said to wear a coat of many colours, recalling to you that famous betrayal of brothers, painted by Ford Maddox Brown (looked it up) of Jacob holding his dead-but-not-really-dead son’s coat. Whatahellofapainting. Gut wrenching.
It’s all too much sometimes.
So maybe you go back to your room, pull the shades, look up when picture-taking was still spitting up — the sepia epoch — or find painters that colour-purged, Richter to Warhol, Jan van Eyck to Jasper Johns (looked them up). That’s a whole ‘nother thing: masters of monochrome. Not an insurrection but a revelation! how black and white can sew light and spirit you away to another dimension — some third heaven. Go figure.
That’s when you remember Grade 8 photography class and the b&w you took of Arlene with your Kodak Brownie — Lee jeans, cream blouse, left hand on perfect convex hip
— late June, sent you that breakup letter!
Ah, no matter, ‘cause by now you’re a grayscale-prairie-puddle reflecting a mid-March-lead-sky, so you pick up your bleeding palette, brooding heart, and shuffle on down the road; blue as hell but ready to tell anyone who’ll listen, about Arlene the monochrome siren or Iris the flying rainbow.
Morning Stephen
This was very touching and helped my brain float a while as I sit here this morning working on the planning of my mother, Charlene’s service. She loved color, a lot of green. Always said I don’t like green, but somehow I am looking forward cuddling up in her mint green fuzzy robe. She was a funny lady! giving busy, moving! It was hard to help when we were having a special occasion meal, her 4 sets of hands would take over. I settled on cleanup! Well thank you for this moment as the memories come out every few moments embracing me.
warmest regards, Letty
Thank you for this Letty! So touching. My heart goes out to you.
Ah, Stephen. This is crazy good. I’m hunkered down under that lead sky and just can’t bear to look up all that beauty. Sometimes a stewing in lament makes me love colour that much more when I’m done. Thanks for the bookmark to return to when I can once again open up.
Thanks so much Joyce! I know what you mean about “stewing”.
Stephen – you had me at the mention of the first green (of spring). Those shades were late to appear in eastern PA this year, but I was recently remarking that I wish I had a fresh box of crayons of all the shades of spring greens. I would leave them untouched, just to look at in the drab months of winter. To remind me of nature’s palette that would return, regardless of any pandemic or other global crisis.
I realize that this beautiful poem is about so much more and just what I needed to break up the monotony of emails and COVID response planning.
Ah, lovely, fresh box of crayons. Yes! Thanks so much for this Diane.
This morning as I walked Red Willow Park path beside the Sturgeon:
– saw tiny green triangles emerging from a greening stem
– watched a pileated wood pecker flick fibers of wood to uncover breakfast
– shared the path with a yearling moose
and upon returning from early morning surge of spring opened up a panorama of colour.
Lovely! You’ve just added to the poem. Thank you Ray!
“grayscale-prairie-puddle reflecting a mid-March-lead-sky” – got a haircut the other day after 3 1/2 months. I watched Castula my barber cut off the variegated gray that colours my head these days, and watched my head change contours as she worked – and I liked what I saw!
Thanks, Steve – a fun and moving piece!
Your self-esteme restored? Thanks Sam.