If color cannot cure
Can it at least incite Hope?²
Draw Fresh colours from the vernal flow’rs—³
The hues which thou so carefully dost Nourish.⁴
We in hue all hues in our Controlling—⁵
Our color is a Meditation.⁶
We sweep with many-colored Brooms—
And we leave the Shreds behind.⁷
Motes of Dust dance into Color!⁸
Two Colors are never the same—
Even if they’re from the same tube.⁹
The selection of the prism cannot be
Compared to the Confusion of a Sunset!¹⁰
¹ Hermann Hesse tr. Richard & Clara Winston, A Dream
² Maggie Nelson, Bluets
³ Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock
⁴ Samuel Daniel, Beauty, Time, and Love
⁵ William Shakespeare, Sonnet XX
⁶ Wallace Stevens, Debris of Life and Mind
⁷ Emily Dickinson, She Sweeps with Many-Colored Brooms
⁸ Yukio Mishima tr. John Nathan, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace
⁹ Derek Jarman, On Seeing Red
¹⁰ Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Naturalist