The Question and Its Answer

There is a question asked of you and me

every day we live to see

the cadmium sun awaken to yawn

and stretch, so hopeful, into being.

And questions fall on ears like feathers,

but, choices can be perilous,

and answers, then,

mean soon having to choose.

One side, and the other,

and everything between,

potential, and the nerve

to declare a thing to be.

And sometimes isn't it

like standing in the hardware store?

Like, staring at the wall,

at all the swatches in the stall,

hypnotized by paint chips,

and caught between them all?

And sometimes does it feel

like you've been here for years,

in this aisle, sick

and tired of it,

torn to tears?

And what is color, anyway?

Perception, maybe data.

I know some color theory,

but don't know the things that matter.

I'm a fake,

sometimes, I lie,

or can't decide,

and now I think I might

be running,

quick like crimson,

out of sun

and out of time.

And it's spectrums stretched across the earth,

like a sheet over a sculpture.

It's histories, and worth,

and meaning, split by culture.

And, really, it's just white

that's run away from home.

Maybe, that's what I'm like,

maybe no one's monochrome.

But there's a sticky sweet to orange,

and an sympathy in blue,

and everybody else

seems so able to choose.

And dusk will fall, saltwater slate.

I call to say I'll be home late,

and no one there picks up the phone.

I look to find I'm all alone.

And nothing gets decided

in the middle of the night

and soon the guys in back

will be turning out the lights.

And in the dark, all color goes,

and overnight, all panic grows.

And still I'm standing in the store,

mirrored in the hazy glass

of the window and the doors,

and I see my reflection there

and mistake it for yours.

And I find that I exist just right

in such a low and easy light,

all cast in simple shades of white,

and stunned like silver at the sight.

And I decide it is the shape

of us that matters, anyway.

Color changes with the time,

but the mass of us,

the space and line,

stays gold, stays ever

something prime.

There is a question asked of you and me

every day we live to see

the cornflower moon decide her shape

and wink, so quiet, into place.

Questions fall on ears like feathers,

They ask me and,

sometimes, I answer.

I'm all of it,

and so are they,

the vehemence of green,

the saccharine of yellow,

and turquoise, neat and clean,

and the adrenaline of violet,

and I wish I'd understood;

I didn't have to be decided

to be good.

There is a question asked of you and me,

every day we live to see,

and we

don't have to answer it

to be.