Jaune Billet Doux

NAPOWRIMO 2024, Day 21 – Photo courtesy of my front garden

The test for today is to write a poem the focusses on and repeats the name of a colour. I chose my colour for the uplift it offers each Spring and opted to use shades rather than duplicate the one noun.

….

Outside the greenhouse, the glum grey, cold light of a November afternoon dims and fades into shades of dark wet slate.
Decay fills the air with its display of barren perfume.

Standing in a world that colour has forsaken,
The blushed flesh of my hands caress secret plans for riotous palettes.
Mundane mounds of ochre dried skin and flaking tan scales, hide magnificently what will later be revealed.
Later, when warmer climes dawn happier times and hope explodes in gardens and fields.

Rising from the damp green will bloom golden suns of blazing bliss,
Whose amber joy will submit to the world; Spring’s unfurled butterscotch kiss.
These honey-scented canaries will sing, warm primrose light to our faces they’ll bring.
They will dance with the breeze and issue lemon letters of love,
Sunshine rays sent from below, not from above.
Tender stems will furnish their jewels of jaune billet doux,
In every hint, and tint and shade of glorious glowing yellow,
That will break the dawn and paint bright our hearts,
And tear maudlin winter’s dull shrouds apart.

….

6 thoughts on “Jaune Billet Doux

  1. You’re just wild about saffron, Graham! I like that you opted to use shades rather than duplicate the one noun, adjective or even verb! I love the way your poem gently shifts from ‘glum grey’ through ‘dark wet slate’, ochre and ‘tan’ to a fanfare of bright yellow. I especially enjoyed ‘Spring’s unfurled butterscotch kiss’ and the alliterative ‘lemon letters of love’. This Sunday morning is bright again!

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  2. Fabulous images you have created. A few of the many I enjoyed: “glum grey, cold light of a November afternoon dims and fades into shades of dark wet slate” “Spring’s unfurled butterscotch kiss”, “lemon letters of love”

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