JuJuan Ramón Gomis: Yellow is a happy colour
A lovely poem about Yellow!
Yellow is the sun of childhood
the certain day
the fine silk strands
of youthful years
and wearing them
in a simple dress
of pale shantung
natural delicate
rustling against warm thighs
Yellow is a daisy-chain of memories
picking primroses in the woods
on Mothering Sunday
mailing them home in a tin box -
the flowers arranged on damp moss
sandals on sea fronts
Italian ice-cream
English mustard in a blue glass pot
Welsh rarebit and tea
with my father on visiting days.
Yellow is perfect dawn -
a bouquet of open beaks in a nest
promising next year
and the year after next
it is the pure primary before the smudges
of growing up clouds it with tears
Yellow is a hurting joy like Chopin
it clings with tendrils to my mind
the jaundiced hopes
the cancelled love
the chances left behind
all sprawl in sallow clusters
on the canary vine
taunting me
Yellow is the chink of light under the door-
the handle I cannot seem to turn
(Nov.2004)
(Senneville, Québec)