The Color of Life

The Color of Life
 
What is the color of life?
In the sincerity of the world,
all colors are bound in seven loops.
 
In quiet, faded light,
moment by moment,
we hurry back again—
but toward what light?
 
A morning full of color—
one colored light.
In the monastery’s field of kash flowers,
a solitary nun;
a thicket of white in the sky;
the color of calm,
of still and quiet time?
 
Or the proud, upraised, majestic hue
of the endless horizon,
where clouds, in perfect arrangement,
paint the sky;
the black of forests,
obscene and terrifying—
is that its color?
 
Or perhaps in color there is so much blood,
so much crimson,
youth and age together—
and at this edge of life,
it frightens me.
 
Then it all lies scattered
in the rush of a thousand people;
in getting lost,
I feel it must be there,
mixed into the polish of skin—
some color, surely.
 
I have not seen it.
Seeking to see the world,
I have learned myself.