Brown: the color of earth, the color of humility, the
color of wood, the color of foundations – the down below. Brown: fundamental and non-splashy. It’s there, but there
and not noticed. I ask tiny kids in classrooms, “Favorite color?” and as I speed around the room, out come all the
colors, but rarely brown – even from brown kids. Brown – the color of food before it grows – earth – soil
– and the color of food when it’s all finished, and it comes out of the bowels
of our earth. Brown – can’t picture any flags with brown in its fabric
– yet the soldiers below – wear brown uniforms. The big shots know that those
who die for and with the flag will be fighting
in mud and holes – down there - down in
the earth. The parents know that’s the
color of graves – on all 4 sides of the rectangular hole that the casket is lowered
into. Brown – a nice sound – a poet’s word – rhymes with town,
clown, down, and sounds like crown – feels like solid, wood, earth, doesn’t
feel like water or sky. Brown …. Too many of us have not experienced dirt roads – country
roads – back roads – that are twisty, narrow and can get washed out. The metaphor is lost with macadam and super-highways and
city streets. “Afoot and light hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.” Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road, I
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