Hue and cry

‘There are more colours than you think,’ she said,
To the stubborn unbeliever, umber overcoat
always on, and sure, quite sure.
‘Look here, at this blast of tinct, erupting
from a corner of the world, a fist in it;
a new creature emerging, tiny. Punching
a rose fist and cadmium sleeve.
What hue or temper will they be?
Same as the cloud in which they were submerged:
cerulean blue mood, cyan or phthalo, say?’
Umber looked, but did he see
or gauge an as yet unlimmed world?
She wasn’t giving up, this girl in carmine shoes:
‘The world is pretty and more various,
in time or aspect than you can yet imagine.
Watch, now: silent. Feel the chroma now,
rushing forward from this puff, this cloud.’
What did he see?
Pretty, he allowed, but inconvenient,
with things to do, skating on his life
and errands shouting, forms to turn,
accomplishments to crow.
‘Oh Umber,’ said Carmine, this silently,
in her heart, ‘your sureness: your downfall;
the inchoate, uncertain: joy –
play, metaphysical, and love.
That’s all. And all.’
She’d willed it. Too bad. He wouldn't see
this little birth on a grey street: too much to do.

Hue and cry

The cloud, she saw, was manganese blue,
the tiny fist a ball, rose pink,
delft blue edges, new life, precarious
but coruscating in its beauty.
Carmine stopped to welcome it
as Umber walked on.