Eileen R. Tabios is a poet working in multiple genres and in-between. She also loves books by writing, reading, publishing, critiquing, romancing and advocating for them. This blog will feature her bibliophilic activities with posts on current book engagements and links to her books and projects related to books.

Thursday, February 27, 2025

NEW POEM: "COLOR THEORY"

I just published my third Poetry Column for the local paper--you can read it by enlarging mage below. It's been fruitful relying on the column to write new poems since the novel-in-progress is taking up the majority of my time. I replicate the latest poem, "Color Theory" below since the newspaper format eliminated the stanza breaks. C'est la vie--at least it's a good fight to bring poetry to a wider readership.


COLOR THEORY

 

At the park

a toddler

wipes her

hands on

her blouse,

imprinting

green and

brown stains.

 

Among the

parents watching

their kids at play,

someone says,

“Too bad her

shirt is white.”

The toddler’s

mother replies,

“Fortunately,

Bleach exists.”

 

The mother

doesn’t share 

the question

that infiltrated

her mind—

 

Why is white

associated

with purity?

When one combines

all the colors

of the universe, 

the result

is their cancellation:

the color white.

 

Soon, the park

will greet

Winter. When

snow will fall

the milk powder

will cover everything—

 

everything like trees,

houses, cars, pets,

even people, to reveal

a nature as

indiscriminate as

a wildfire, whose

color is often depicted

as red, despite how

a flame’s hottest part

is colored white.

 



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