In Living Color

He…rotates hours in tractor green
rust red…bruise purple…cow black,
and slogs mud brown to harvest gold;
he stretches days to months of acre
farmland distance smudged to dusty
lilac edged pale orange to sunset.

She…stacks rainbow cotton into strata
on her closet shelves… pink yellow rose
denim blue…and she turns flower print
calico to fat quarters for quilts’ necessity;
she cuts pale pastel lengths for day clothes,
crisp white curtains for their bedroom,
layette laces, a black mourning shift.

They…jar garden colors…inter them dated
deep to cellar racks…their summer bounty
of intense prairie heat…tomato bean beet
corn plum dimmed…cooled in basement
gloom until kitchen resurrected to the
palette of their plates…for lives lived
cumulus against a cloud fog mist canvas
of blue white graying years.

Bonnie Marshall

Artwork by Conroy Maddox