Hue-bris

I painted every living room wall,
but did not like the hue at all.
It didn’t match the sofa right.
It was too orangey and bright.

And so I sought to alter it
with another color over it.
A watery glaze applied with care
cancelled out that awful glare.

I did not like the yellow alone,
but thinly o’er the other tone
it did the trick and looked superb.
One color did the other curb.

Carefully on a section ample
I painted out a color sample
to show the painter what to do–
watered yellow over orangeish hue.

He was an artist and had an eye
for form and structure, grass and sky
but his talent was not English or
my talent was not Spanish, for

when I came home at end of day,
my cry was one of real dismay.
What had he done, this artist fellow,
but take the undiluted yellow

and cover all the orange up?
The room looked like a buttercup!
I shook my head in real distress.
It clashed with sofa, hair and dress.

Next day, the paint store saw me coming.
The owner smiled and started humming.
Money in hand, I came each day
to pay and pay and pay and pay.

Alas, selections were not ample.
I knew they did not have a sample
right for me and so I got
ten liters of yellow and also bought

orange and white and brown and green,
blue and every hue between.
I took them home and mixed them up–
tint after tint in a gallon cup.

And pretty soon I had a stew
of every little shade and hue
and when I put one on the wall,
I found it was the best of all!

It matched my sofa and my eyes.
It clashed not with the lawn nor skies.
It went with pictures, sculpture, table.
I mixed as much as I was able,

then called the painter and asked him when
he could paint my room again.
This time I watched as he covered up
wall after wall from my mixing cup.

Now four layers grace my sala wall
each over each, one under all.
White, then orange, yellow and
that lovely concoction mixed by my hand.

In other rooms, each wall I made
a different hue of blue or jade
or red or mustard, orange or gold.
My house is varied and very bold.

Guests say they like the colors I chose
but when they see the gold or rose,
they cannot possibly suppose
how many colors are under those!

For dVerse Poets  we were to write a poem including Emily Dickinson’s line,
“Frequently, the woods are pink—” But instead, I used the line as inspiration in my choice of poems and hope after reading it that you can imagine that tree painted pink just outside my sala window!