“. . . Yellow as a goat’s wise and wicked eyes,

yellow as a hill of daffodils,

yellow as dandelions by the highway,

yellow as butter and egg yolks,

yellow as a school bus stopping you,

yellow as a slicker in a downpour. . . “

Excerpt from “Colors passing through us,” by Marge Piercy

In the woods, hurrying down the trail to meet my friend in the large open meadow with our dogs, I kept being surprised to look up and see blue sky. True blue for a January morning. Up early, I finished preparing the prompt for my Farm Pond Writer’s workshop before rushing out the door. It was a brisk hike through the brown woods. The moss on the craggy uphill trail was emerald green. I begin to really know I am leaving soon, these woods. I begin to realize how dramatically my habitat will change. The writing prompt I created for this morning’s workshop was all about color, embodying color, seeing, noticing and describing color, finding color, color as character, color as qualities, color as spirit. The color I instinctively draw to myself today is turquoise. There are so many colors in the writing room, and outside, the pond, under the January sky, lit by the sun. All day, fighting an elastic pull of irritability. Tells me I am tired, did not sleep well. For my cure: When I wake up, I must eat something yellow. A banana, perfectly ripe. Put on a rain coat and wait for the bus.