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