Surely This Island Is Not All White

 

Surely this island is not all white, lacking the green bruising
of palm and wild willow weeds.
You would have me think there is a void and listen to me lament
the lost sound of waves striking sand.
You would have me believe that the flowers are outlines
and the huge burst of red and yellow sun invisible.
Do not whisper that we are silhouettes sitting
like stick figures against a background of nothingness.
Oh, be a soul, be a color, and spill all across our landscape.
I do not care if spills or chaos stain the background
with passion or wild eruptions,
but I grow desperate in the melancholy of black & white,
drawing us, dull and listless, in still life.

Reviews

[arbitrary jane]

i am so close to living this poem recently.
sitting decorously for my portrait, in graphite. neat and minimal on a perfectly square canvas of nothing.

... oh be a soul...
i may go out tonight and scream that to the sunflowers.

[W.k.kortas]

Has a valedictory tone to it, in a way--it's an wonderful blending of the vivid and the wistful, if that makes any sense.

[Greg the Bard]

I see this as part oif an on going work that includes the new work about becoming beautiful. It makes sence and could be a very nice pome together. Great work.

[Donald Meikle]

I totally agree with Ed on this Phyb.

[Ed Hart]

you paint this, and i fall silent