Color code

As she looked out, she thought

that one might say

the day had tried to snare her

into sharing its gray.

What was it about

the mystique of colors

that often challenged explanation:

the eyes of mariners, so often blue,

seeming to draw their color from the sea

and the hands of gardeners, deep bronze:

sun-browned to match the color of the earth.

Colors:

each species harboring its secrets

as in the world of flowers:

forget-me-nots, at first bright yellow,

later showing that their truer hue was blue;

and a species of hibiscus, white at dawn,

turning pink at noon, and then by sunset,

changing to a bold and brilliant scarlet.

The color of truth, Gide said, is gray.

And yet, she was sure

the color of truth, too,

was in the beholder's view:

a color not pledged to stay one way -

as even the grayest

of a gray day's gray

could sometimes turn into

(by the grace of a slice of sun),

the most glittering gold

and the bluest blue.