Purple: of kingly cloak and scoundrel’s black eye
Cuddly fleece robe on too sunny a morning
Sharing with orange dusk’s dazzling display

 

Stage curtains open onto a satin decollete
Velvet sash around a nubby lemon fabric
Silk ribbon tied on a shiny golden package

 

With pits or without, sweet or sour
Color of wine, opaque or clear
Drooping breast of eggplant or piquant aubergine

 

Add hopeful yellow, it’s hallowed mother earth
Hungry orange turns it muddled grey
Take away her red—she’s down in the blues

 

Erase the blues—too hot to get your arms around
The mallard’s burnished feathers plucked for the roast
Tinged with green\yellow, it’s pain’s visual confirmation

 

Livened as the drenched bark of maple
Gently sweet fragrance of comforting lilac
Periwinkle stretching across the green

 

Fetching bonnet on the plucky peony, a match
For the jacket gone now to Goodwill
To be plucked out by a lady with dyed hair gone wrong

 

Anemones’ petals unfold from dark centers
Gayly dancing between waving grasses
To welcome the rumbling promise of thunder

 

Before skies burst forth with blessing
In answer to prayers of the bowed headed cyclamen
And the humble violet patiently waiting
(great with black when red’s not available)