The dog stares mesmerized
past the old bulbs wrapped around the blue spruce, those steady, dependable glass bulbs that have illuminated twenty Christmases,
to the lilac bushes where the new micro-bulbs change from white to colour, fade, flash, flicker, urge us to celebrate with their “Party on!” dance,
but this year, putting them out
used all the energy we have,
and there’s no irony in the number of blue bulb strings wrapped and draped around the door.
Outside, in the twilight
the world is black and blue,
like a sun bleached wrapper,
yellows and reds leached away.
Just an old wrapper,
a ghost of its former brightness,
as is this day, lightness fading
blue.
New covers
for old chairs.
Pieces of summer sky
cut, sewn, and stapled
Fresh summer days
contained within a frame
set in the living room.
“No, honey!” the mother said
reaching across that table and plucking
a crayon from her daughter’s hand.
“The sky isn’t pink. Here,
use this blue crayon.”
The little girl blinked tears.
The teacher leaned over,
and studied the picture.
“What a beautiful sunset
you’ve drawn!” she said.
.
.
For Charlotte, who is teaching crafts at the art gallery, and is amazed at some parents.
I have a blue brow.
This certainly doesn’t indicate any blue blood (though my children can trace their patrilineal descent to Charlemagne four ways).
What it does indicate is a lack of care during the rinse cycle, I suppose.
As you know, from the photo at right, I wear coloured streaks in my hair. At present, all the lower couple of inches of my scalp all the way around is a fuchsia pink, and there are long midnight blue strips on either side. On the right it’s just above the ear, on the left it goes right up to the top of my head. (This sounds strange, but looks quite nice, and garners compliments all the time, so don’t worry about my sanity).
The top of my head is very white. (To effectively camouflage the instant roots I get because my hair grows so fast).
Usually, my brows are almost black (like my hair used to be. >>sigh<<) but lately half of one has lost its pigment. Today when I finished rinsing out the dye and blow-drying my hair, I looked into the mirror and discovered that my formerly white brow, is now blue.
I’m not sure what I think about this.
It’s not that I’m adverse to colour, obviously I’m not. Perhaps it’s just that this seems like an awful lot of blue. I usually wear blue mascara and eye liner, and the gem in my left nostril is blue, as well.
I like serendipity, though. It is what it is.
Blue.
I suppose next time I could accidentally dye it pink…
😉
I was four years old when I joined a group of men in our back alley looking up into the sky. At their pointing, I was certain that I could see a little black dot: the rocket carrying the astronaut crew that arrived on the moon.
I was in my teens, when I was in an audience to hear astronaut Jim Irwin talking about what it was like. He described looking back on Earth and thinking it was just a blue marble.
Neil Armstrong echoed that thought when he said,
“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.”
You may remember how in the movie Men in Black the alien disguised as a talking pug says,
“You humans! When will you learn size doesn’t matter? Just because something’s important, doesn’t mean it’s not very small.”
This concept is reiterated at the end of the movie in this clip:
.
.
.
Requisate in pace, Neil Armstrong. You captured a moment of greatness that emphasizes our exiguity.
.
Shawn L. Bird 