Azure is Both Silence and Transparent Whisper

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

One blue, ambivalence of color, rhymes

With more.  The holiest of blues is like

A crushed velour, like crushed and ancient times.

Its blues are like a two-toned lightning strike

That lights an unsuspecting tree and spits

Its secrets open.  Secrets cannot live

In perfect blue.  Its sacredness thus splits

The heartwood outward.  This cannot forgive

The plainest blues, the simple ones that mean

Just one shade.   Azure is at once a blue

So innocent and pure that Eden’s scene

Requires it.  Darker blue is equal, true.

  The blue of heaven’s sky, like Jesus’ youth,

    Is only half of azure, half of truth.

© Phillip Whidden