Wednesday, October 8, 2008

William Carlos Williams loved colors

    Yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow!
    It is not a color.
    It is summer!
    It is the wind on a willow,
    the lap of waves, the shadow
    under a bush, a bird, a bluebird,
    three herons, a dead hawk
    rotting on a pole--
    Clear yellow!
    It is a piece of blue paper
    in the grass or a threecluster of
    green walnuts swaying, children
    playing croquet or one boy
    fishing, a man
    swinging his pink fists
    as he walks--
    It is ladysthumb, forget-me-nots
    in the ditch, moss under
    the flange of the carrail, the
    wavy lines in split rock, a
    great oaktree--
    It is a disinclination to be
    five red petals or a rose, it is
    a cluster of birdsbreast flowers
    on a red stem six feet high,
    four open yellow petals
    above sepals curled
    backward into reverse spikes--
    Tufts of purple grass spot the
    green meadow and clouds the sky.

    William Carlos Williams

2 comments:

Caitlin Allen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Caitlin Allen said...

Oh that's so lovely! "Forget-me-nots/in the ditch." I'm inspired by the concept of this poem. I'm especially intrigued that he used pink, blue and green in describing yellow. What does a color remind you of? Even if "It is not a color."