What color do you see?
The child asks her mother,
after reflecting-
The blue eyes take care of the oceans,
the green ones tend to grow everything
the brown, found all around,
those brown eyed bodies built the mountains
by blinking.
The child wonders what exactly
the sky sees.
Her mother mentions the birds in a vee,
points to the bees and
Honey-
The child sees no kindred spirit afloat,
she is grounded and feels pressure.
She scours around the ground
in search of relatives, by proximity,
puts them in a pencil box
after making them shiny,
and then she names them.
The child collects her rocks and hounds her mother
about the origins or babies
of granite and geode
and likes the lineage, the idea
of the clouds trapped in crystals
and how close purple seems to black.
How did the rocks, and
the sand the water get born-
She asks with her eyes squinting out at the night sky.
Were all stars once planets?
She asks that moonless night,
and feels sorry about the answer.
It will be back, her mother explains phases
and patience.
The child misses no more
and wonders what container would be good for keeping
stars. Look around, says her mother,
all that you are
is Here, touching her heart,
let the stars fall where they may...
Is that why my eyes are grey?
She remembers
as though it were as close as yesterday.
Painting by Edward Lear, The Marble Rocks (1882) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
