Siesta in Color

JESSICA POWERS

SIESTA IN COLOR

Near a glazed window drinking south and west

in thirst of sunlight in the early spring,

I with a sudden luck of illness take

magic siesta. I cavort with color,

hobnob with rainbows on the coasts of slumber,

revisit prisms of long disregard.

Gay pinks, impetuous yellows splash the wall

and line my eyelids as I drift toward sleep;

blue, green and aqua prance in patterns; purple

and lavender to squares and circles run.

I think if I could track this charm to source

or else to terminal I might discover

opening or dropoff or amazing shore

to color's primal meaning.

Yet I muse:

is not pure fact a fullness? I remember

how rainbows had addressed me as a child,

how light and color made their language heard.

Though I was not yet judge or analyst,

something secure as given, kept; I held,

as with my grandmother's warm bursts of Gaelic,

sweet words that had no meaning but were there.