Skip to main content

And it was all yellow...

Next up in the series is... you guessed it! Yellow (gold, ochre, amber, sepia, daffodil...whatever you want to call it). Yellow has always been the color of optimism for me- never overbearing, just bright enough to make me smile. This poem pays tribute to that particular quality of yellow that means light, joy, and hope.

~Yellow~

When the sun shines, you’ve got to catch it
Save it for those amber-colored days
When the lemons won’t turn to lemonade
Because you ran out of sugar last week
Save it for that faded moment
Of sepia-toned memories
Playing like a reel behind your eyes
Maybe a remnant of a sunny state fair day
Or a flash of ribbon resting in her dark hair
Mmm- if I could, I’d fry your smile
In golden butter
And dip it in mustard
Before gobbling it up,
Licking the crumbs off
My fingers
And slurping the juice off
My plate
When the sun shines, you’ve got to catch it
Soak it in.
Grow your seed into a
Sunflower
The daffodils will never
Lie down of their own
Accord
Sand is not just for martinis on the beach
I crush my own shells each spring
To spread on the concrete
When summer pulls me outside to
Bask and bake in the warmth
When the sun shines, you’ve got to catch it
So when you find yourself
Sunken in the yellow quagmire of thought
Inside when you should be out
Foot stuck in the emotional sap
Of your years
Take the bronze hand held out to you
And get some of that shine on your soul
The sun’s out.
~P. Desai (2011)

"Ever the Optimist"- 09/03/2010 (P.Desai, 365 Project)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How Now Brown Cow?

No one ever says brown is their favorite color- it's not bright, it's not vibrant, and it's not very beautiful. It is earthy. It is natural. It is skin, soil, butterfly wing, and death. It is, perhaps the deepest color of the earth, as well as the most elevated. How 'bout them brown apples? ~Brown~   What are you that brings sweat to men's brows as they tear you apart, reaping and forcing you to give for centuries? You thirst for the rain, sweet martyr,  while they thirst for your very last fruit. What are you that men will kill thousands of their brethren, holding you hostage along with their own brothers? You must quietly drink the blood they have spilled, weeping silently as they mar your skin with shallow mines. What are you that an exile longs to crawl back to your warm womb rather than seek riches elsewhere?  He will lower his lips in a fervor of final peace as he kisses that which can be his only home. What are you that men shamelessly use you for thei

Multiple Universes

I have a flash of memory from when I was a child where I was standing in my room looking around. I noticed the bed, the dresser, the bookshelves, and the many things that lay strewn about. I also noted the spaces in the room, the emptiness that was existed between the things. It occurred to me- quite suddenly- that there could be another universe stacked on top the one I was in. I imagined having the vision to see another Poonam busily drawing a picture on the ground, or else another family in my house altogether as I stood there and looked on. Why not? I thought. If the universe is infinite and if the divine is omnipotent, why can’t there be infinite parallel worlds stacked atop one another? Why do I presume to believe I must be able to see or sense them, and take that as the only evidence that they do or do not exist? My human form is limited. I may not be endowed with the ability, the faculty to see or understand such a limitless world. Humbly, I am an amoeba compared to this univ

This Poem Doesn't Help the Hungry

Friends, I am constantly in awe (read: shock) of our ability to acquire, to possess, and to surround ourselves by things. I am also constantly torn between my own egotistical desire to own things and my higher desire to minimize, simplify, and become unattached. In another lifetime, perhaps I could live as a monk would, with few possessions and few earthly needs beyond basic sustenance. For now, I am still drawn to mindless entertainment and material acquisitions. Still, I offer my dream, my ~Two Cents~ Perhaps I've no right to speak Having been born in the spring of life Grown up in the summer And never having known a fall or winter, But I find it ever so strange how we do What we do with a face of false confidence of quiet hibernation And march like ants toward our certainties without even being able to look them in the face. For our brood we acquire ever larger houses Stock them full of trinkets and comforts. Things we may never use in our life times ... just