Saturday, August 16, 2014

Headline Poem 8/16/14 -- A life of color

We saw the movie The Giver today, and then had amazing friends over for dinner, so naturally, I'm seeing and feeling things in color. Today's poem is inspired by the movie -- pretty much a headline. 

A life of color 

It's a question 
we've been contemplating 
since the beginning of time. 

     Do we live a safe, 
controlled life, 
    free  of pain (and love), or 
do we drip wet 
with passion and tension 
and  fear 
and  risk it all in case 
there is a place 
worthy of being naked 
and colorful and free? 

Do we live a life 
in the ignorant cave of 
black and white 
without hate and jealousy 
and pride and    
shame, 
all existing exactly the same? 

No! That is worse. That is destruction. 
Instead 
we go 
    past the boundary
walls toward memories 
    of murder and snow, 
cold and ugly, 
awful and impossible to explain. 

Today or then or tomorrow or next week. 

We chose a life that 
drenches us and lassos us 
and leaves us 
cut 
open and exposed, 
bleeding violet and lime 
and indigo, 
     
but also hiding in a waterfall 
with a lover's face pressed to our nose. 
Kissing. Feeling. Taking in it all. 

No color may feel like enough, 
And
until you've smelled 
the rainbow 
and eaten the red fruit of despair, 
you can't relate, or hesitate, or communicate, or deliberate, or 
make any sort of love 

at all. Ever. 

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