COMMUNICATING THE CHRONOLOGY OF COLOR
On a street in New Orleans,
I met an old veteran who was blind.
He said: Tell me of colors, if you don't mind.
I said:
Breathe in. Experience the breeze.
Let reality and imagination blend like symphonies.
The air and space is a suspension all around you,
devising dreams, creating fantasies, making blue.
Feel soft velvet against your skin.
That's where royalty ends and purple begins.
Let the sun touch your soul and warm your face:
That's the red of rubies and fire and exalting grace.
I said:
Let your space be distinctly transformed.
Lie beneath a floral blanket and be warmed.
Perceive sunbeams streaming thru stained glass.
This is green, the fragrance of fresh mown grass.
Pink can best be understood,
when likened to a babe in arms and motherhood.
Yellow is the joy of hearing a canary sing;
picking a bouquet of mums in fall and daffodils in spring.
I said:
Orange is like the happy Mardi Gras sound
of laughter and music you hear in the background.
White is cold ice, melting thru your fingertips.
Touch it to your tongue, cool your parched lips.
Belonging entirely to the moment, I've tried to explain;
aware of the thin line between pleasure and pain;
for there is but one color left of which to tell,
and it is the un-illuminated blackness of hell.
He smiled with worldly resignation and said:
Black is a color you needn't verbally show,
for that is the one color I already know.