Friday, July 16, 2004

On a Fieldtrip to the Botanical Gardens, Kenya Gets a Lesson (Not in the Lesson Plan)

If she could, she would choose
to be the color of Yellow cosmos, French lavender,
Texas paintbrush (or a Shasta daisy at the very

least): Anything but the color of pots
& kettles!
Which she is. Which is when
a chaperone (who happens to be her

Mother) rebuts: But Kenya, you are also the color
of night, whose splendor cannot even be contained
by Earth. Nor by expanding galaxies, wandering

exquisitely as the thoughts of God. The color of Infinity,
if it had one; of Eternity, if it ever paused
to be measured. Daughter, you are the blank canvas

of dreams, where Earth's first undulating volcanic
beaches bloomed in hues so heavy, no lesser flower
could bear it.


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