Blue Again

If I were to guess, based on the pink sky
of morning, I’d say Paradise,

for there it was—all beauty and sweetness
laid obvious on the horizon.

Joy and awe, childlike and free, jumped up
in me, like rabbits in spring!

But if I took a pink crayon and made the sky
pink as this dawn, someone would say

blue, and teach me otherwise, and sameness,
convention, not remembering

other skies—the swirling gray, the near white.
Blue, blue, blue, this crayon only.

It’s good to get old enough to discard advice.
Its fine to peel labels off

your old broken crayons, let them be useful
as they are, in a cigar box with a lid.

It’s OK to make the sky any color you want,
any color it is!

(Says the old, broken, naked crayon. Says
the gray one, hardly used.)

If I were to guess what lies ahead, I’d say
trouble, followed by calm,

restoration, a hint of regret. You could
make this with streaks of gold

under the pink, and with a line of gray
like a leftover cloud,

or you could just pretend, and color the sky
blue again, only blue, always blue.

— Babs