[Kiddalee]: 225.Poetry.Formatted.Concerti of Colours

Concerti of Colours

by Vicki Nemeth



First Movement: An Answered Riddle

Am I a princess in enthralling silver,
Inciting gleaming chimes with every shiver?
Am I a lady clad in lightning white,
Peering, from sterile cracks, into the night?
Or do I, in a dress of many colours,
Run wild and free, safe under Heaven's cover?

I know I'm she from whom I don't retreat,
Within whom I can breathe and move and eat.
And when the lightness of the cloth I feel,
My eyes again can look at what is real.
I study, when my lover comes in view,
And say, "I see it now: I do love you!"



Second Movement: Burning Imagery

A rainbow encircles the sun in
a blotched bluish sky, partly cloudy,
over deep green tree limbs
enfolding worn grey shingles,
dripping the ashes of a rainstorm
from the eaves of the knotted wooden hen house
with a doorway near blackened by its own shadow,
decorated under the corners by cool, moist green grass
over darkened wheat, stomped into the
near black soil, soaked in rain,
wearing a pattern of shiny puddles, and scratches and bird tracks,
to a concert of clucking and flapping
under the dominion of
A RED WHEELBARROW, GLAZED WITH RAINWATER, BESIDE THE WHITE CHICKENS*



Third Movement: North Bay

My town has had a cold and wet July.
The sun peered over rain to soaking folk.
Although it lacked a rainbow, neighbours smiled.
Perhaps they saw what I did in their yards:

To such a filtered light as sun through rain
The Northern gardens have refused to burn.
More healthy foliage I've never seen,
Nor such sweet scented, strong, flourishing blooms.

More stately purples I have never seen,
Nor brighter yellows, nor deep, shining leaves.
So delicate were whites and blues and pinks.
All justified their heavy pollen's scent.

Oh glory! in the lilies of the field.
Oh glory! in the roses by the street.
Oh God! why clothe the creatures of the loam?
Oh God! why not a rainbow in the sky?

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*Williams, William Carlos. "The Red Wheelbarrow". The Broadview Anthology of Poetry ed. Rosengarten, Herbert & Goldrick-Jones, Amanda. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 1993

Movement 1: See also 225.Poetry.Free Verse.Dress