Once Upon a Coloured Eve

Once upon a coloured eve
I dove in palate –
Explored a different world.

Yet all I saw astonished me
Reds, blues, yellows but were
Sticking with their primaries.

Houses were a solid red
The sunset yellow
Sky and clouds a simple blue.

I asked of Blue
‘Why can’t you work together’ –
He called the reds inferior.

A yellow said that breeding
Was against the law;
Purity the policy.

Red, being not much better
Said the only love
He’d make with blue was bloodshed.

Oh, the racism to over-
Come, I thought dismayed,
Wanting purple to exist!

My painting looked doomed, it
Seemed to untrained eyes;
What to do, oh, what to do!

Lo, an idea struck me then!
I sent Red a card
From Blue of purple daisies.

To Blue I gave the
Drawing of a peacock
Signed ‘most sincerely Red’

Yellow received a yard dyed green
And realized at last
Her deepest love for Blue.

Over time the grass grew green,
Houses blue and brown,
Sunsets soon were all of them.

Years were days inside my head
I knew what I had
To do; it tormented me!

I packed up my success and
Inspiration to take
Forlorn, back to my home.

Leaving their space so sorrowful
I dreaded my return
Unto the world of race.

Their descendants would form to
Clouds of pink and white
Within the art I made them.

I remembered Red at dawn
Blue within oceans
Yellow in a vibrant moon.

My final brush stroke was a
Wispy wind with all
Of them together.

The painting at last finished
I came to visit
Them, and soak in endless shades.

We skipped together in a
Rainbow world of glee
Each hue a possibility.

And of this I've told the earth
But they have trouble
With forsaking boundaries.

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