Lonely Crayon

May 2016 Carbondale Poetry Group Prompt Poem about a color without naming the color

Lonely Crayon

 

Here I am again

Laying on the floor

Not even in the sloppy box,

Or even in a child’s hand

Im just another lonely, overlooked

Seldom used crayon

Oh if the children only knew my regal ancestry

My color can be seen in some of humankinds

Earliest artistry

Palm of humans on cave walls,

Hunted animals roaming the plains

Towards perilous falls

All represented by my color

in early mans scrawls

Perhaps I would draw more attention

If I engaged

A “cry for more use”,

In a children’s marketing campaign

Im sure the movie star tints and colors rarely

Feel abandoning pain and loss

Perhaps if the children colored more

Southwestern deserts of the four corners cross

Or canyon land sunsets,

Or high mountain scenes

Then maybe my protective crayon paper

Would be nearly gone or hard to read

Perhaps if them Kidde’s drew and colored more

Indigenous pots or African hair dresses

Id stain their tiny fingers

While creating delightful pictures of

Raw earth colored messes

Or maybe more time in a kitchen

Near the Molés and Tandoori dishes

Toasted paprika and chili powders

Would inspire them towards my, use me more wishes

My dear little children, please choose me from this

Colorful, Tattered artistic box of plenty

When you color your homes rusty roof pictures

Or the fired earth tiles in grandmothers

Humble hearth kitchen

Draw with me to your hearts content

rusted copper penny rushing rivers piercing gully’s

till my waxy length, pinched between tiny fingers

is nearly spent

Sketch to the heavens

Cedar bark covered trees, and the millions of shimmering mirrors

Of the fiery autumn leaves

Outline the aboriginal ceremonies, blessing the original man

In the sun hammered cracked clay stretches

Resembling their native blood needlessly spilled in sand

Oh dear children, please, oh please pick me

I wont let you down,

I may not be your go to color,

But I am one useful, emotion filled crayon.

 

RED OCHRE