My heartbeat has always quickened
in the presence of a particular shade
of blue-green; I don’t know why,
except it reminds me of color-by-number
books and childhood afternoons
when I would create, one defined piece
after another, an ocean or shadowed valley.
I had never seen an ocean,
but that blue-green on a page
where a bright dream appeared in stages —
when the day was rainy and lunch was
chicken noodle soup with buttery crackers —
that color let me know the existence of
eternal worlds, of pigments off my
cardboard chart.
Even now, blue-green steals my breath
and shudders my knees
and makes me want to pray.
— from Vinita Hampton Wright, Days of Deepening Friendship, p. 201
Leave a comment