The Color of My Sadness

Not blue.  Never blue.  

I don’t care what Elvis thought about Hawaii

or what kind of Christmas it will be without you.

Blue is not sad or depressed or blue.

Blue is happy, sky, azure, eternal seas,

baby boys, forever in blue jeans.

I love blue, and I refuse to hand it over to sadness.

 

You can’t have brown either.  

Brown is the earth.

Brown is suntan, coppertone, 

beach babies drinking brown beer 

on a brown blanket 

delivered by a UPS truck.

Back away from the brown.

 

And you can’t have yellow.  Duh.

 

Red is out.  I need it for passion.

And righteous indignation. 

 

Green?  Not on your life.  

It is the smell of freshly mown grass, 

the sound of the breeze blowing 

through Mother Nature’s hair,

the taste of a slightly tart margarita.

 

If you want to own my sadness,

then I suppose you’ll have to take

whatever color the sun becomes 

in those last seconds before she falls 

into the coin slot of the horizon.

Take the thousands of

red-orange-purple-mauve-fuchsias

that melt into each other

and shift and change each other

every few milliseconds 

into one more sunset seen 

for the first time anywhere,

just like that one I saw 

the night you left,

when my tears made a

kaleidoscope of color

out of the western sky

and welled to honor

the last of the light,

the farewell to the 

Bringer of 

Life. 

 

Whatever color is sent on

the last ray from the sun

at day’s end,

that is the color of sadness.

That one you can have.