poem

 Yellow

What we understand as yellow

Varies from person to person.

It’s all a matter of perception.

My yellow isn’t necessarily yours 

Even if we use the same word. 

Light from Wordsworth’s daffodils

Has to travel through clouded cataracts,

Sometimes, and splash up against

Flickering arrays of aging rods

And cones in the back of the retina.

From there it gets shunted down 

A slowly demyelinating optic nerve to a place 

In the brain that generates a sad version

Of the color we know as yellow.

The edges of it can seem

Orange or green

To the practiced eye

But I still know what you mean.

Love is like this too

Only on a much wider spectrum

And the journey it takes to get 

To the raw garden where it grows 

Is far more perilous.

Rare is the love that arrives uninjured.

Sometimes barely enough gets through

And when you waste it 

The world gets dipped in its dye.

Sometimes it arrives so damaged 

You don't even recognize it—

Slam the door in its face. Never get to meet it.

Too much, if you’re not used to it,

Comes as a flash of blinding light

And all you can think about

Is how to see it without ever looking at it.

But it’s all shades of the same color 

Regardless of how much gets filtered.

That’s the only guarantee here—

At least a little bit always find a way through.

You take it as it comes, like any gifted thing: 

Sometimes it shines as joy

Sometimes you start to cry.

Sometimes you sing.

It all depends on

Your angle of illumination.

Sometimes flowers 

Are the color of cowards

And sometimes 

A harbinger of spring.

5/1/25