We've had a thaw here in the last twenty four hours after three weeks of solid white snow and ice (it's not been particularly deep compared to some places but it's been a lot more snow and ice than we used to all the same). For the last week or so I was starting to long to see green again...and so I thought I'd post this old poem. On my website it has the date 2005 but that's only when the site was first up because I know I wrote it years before that (in fact it's number 11 in my book of 'all poems ever' so it must have been a while ago). It's not about weather (that much is fairly obvious...I wrote it around the time when I was low, low, low a lot of the time) but it's still relevant in its way.
It is old so I suppose I could rewrite it and tidy it and make it more well-behaved as a poem. But does that sound like the way I behave? Never!
x
This colour
Are you
Low in mood
In the pits
Below blue
Down where it's kind of
Dark
Navy
Or blue times blue
Where it's bluer than
You can imagine
On the days when
Other colours
Can still be seen
Remember green anyone?
I see green
But I don't believe it
Now I think
No I am sure
That what looks like green
That grass that tree
That's merely blue in thin disguise
It looks like green because
Unbeknownst to us
We all wear yellow-tinted glasses
To hide the terrible truth
About blue
RF about 1997
Posts
22 comments:
Is that your garden today? We're dripping a little, but still 3 inches on the lawn and ice abounds underfoot!
Love the poem, know that place, and no tidying required. Whatsoever.
Yes, that's a bit of the back garden. The white has mostly gone from the garden but having just walked dog around the fields further up the hill I can report there's still plenty of snow and ice up there! Glad I wore wellies...
Thanks re poem. I do think about tidying poems like this up...sometimes I even try it...but then they just seem all wrong to me. It was not a tidy time...in any sense!
x
This is really fantastic Rachel - and you're right to leave as is, that's the mood it was created in, and it suits the shape.
The snow here is nearly all gone as well, all slushy muck fest now...
Thanks Niamh. It's such an old one that I've never done much with it (just checked records and I think I entered into a comp once...but never tried it with a magazine or anything). Glad you like it. Maybe I'll give it a new lease of life somehow. I have a few different colours poems now...maybe a rainbow pamphlet or something...
x
Repetition and internal writing, it's definitely my kind of stuff!!
Yes...how many times can I use the words 'blue' and 'green'!
p.s.when is that most depressing date of the year...must be coming up soon...
x
It's going to be 25th Jan according to last year's calculations. Not good news for the Burns clubs...
x
Lucky you seeing green again - we are still in deep snow. Love the poem.
Yes, I was quite surprised to hear talk of blizzards on the radio traffic and travel Weaver! Just rain here now.
x
Love this. Leave it just as it is.
No idea what internal writing is!! I meant internal rhyme.
I vote "Do Not Touch!" as well. I think after you edit something the first time, it's often best left alone or it loses whatever emotion you were trying to capture at the time. Sort of like trying to re-write history.
I especially loved the end bit of us being deceived by a green which was only blue.
Thanks Dick - you're a lot more of a technician/person who knows what he's talking about than me I think so if you say it's OK then that'll do me!
Sorlil...I guess I just thought you meant writing about innermost thoughts. But that'll do too...
And Hope, this is old history this poem...but it pops up to see me again...and again...and again. Which I suppose is a good sign in a way (though not in every sense!).
x
There's green as I go towards Glasgow, but the village stays completely white. :( I'm bored with snow now...
(Word verification: ishov.... as in "I shovel the snow"?)
Yes, I think on the whole we like the idea of snow more than the (long-term) reality! Our Girl on the other hand would happily keep it for another 6 months or so.
x
Old Japanese had only one word for "blue" and "green", apparently they didn't make any difference between the two. and the word for "blue" can still mean "green" sometimes - perhaps they knew something about it that only a poet could explain to us nowadays? :-)
Brilliant poem! I think you should leave it exactly as it is. It really speaks.
Lucky you seeing the grass - I'm eagerly waiting for the snow to melt so I can see if the snowdrops are coming up in the lawn!
My Mum is blue/green colourblind, Roxana, which I always think must be kind of otherworldly! Thanks for the interesting linguo fact too.
And Phoenix...thanks so much. A lovely comment.
x
That's a bit sad, Rachel. No optimism in this at all. I've been blue, but never really "blue times blue". It's a simple poem but it has depth.
My glasses would be purple, I think.
When I wrote this Kat I was blue x blue x blue x blue! Luckily that was quite some years ago now. I get flashes of it now but not prolonged exposure. Quite a relief.
x
I thought the expression was 'rose-colored glasses'?
But I suppose yellow glasses make the blues seem green - and Frost wrote, "Nature's first green is gold" - and any time I find a way to connect to Robert Frost, it's a win!
Me too - big Frost fan.
x
Post a Comment