the colour of the universe

when I woke up the sky was doing its dawn magic show

an almost unbearable Venusian disrobing into day

all that peachy glory and dewy pearlescent glimmer

I thought of Van Gogh and how he was tormented by the malevolent kaleidoscope of saturation around him

the starry cobalt and wheaten deep gold in his eyes like needles in his brain like needles

the eye is a small miracle

proof if you needed it that miracles do exist and that we are them

of course we love the variegated romance of the iris

mine in cool sea grey with their rim of dark

often unreadable you say

Yours the warm chestnut of someone much more straight forward

the eye the eye the eye

the lists of alchemical parts that morph light into matter in our minds

pupil lens retina

the tenuous physics of vision almost too ludicrous to believe in

the inverted and righted projections of wavelengths of reflected light into miniature images and rainbows

into thought

the fractional adjustments of tiny muscles and curving rays, the opening and closing of apertures like little anemones

look it up

seriously

enough to make you doubt everything and believe anything is possible, even probable

we live in light and colour

those of us who are sighted

we believe in what our eyes can see

although of course the eye is an instrument

we see with our brains

and oh dear

our brains

the naivety would be cute if it wasn’t so narcissistic

the universe is full of colour our miracle eyes cannot see

its own luminous secret palette of gamma and xray

the dark night sky we sleep peacefully wrapped in is in truth glowing brightly with its ‘cosmic microwave background’

(not a made up name)

even the universe itself has a colour

demoted in 2002 from its turquoise- aquamarine heyday to a new truth titled

Cosmic Latte (capitalised)

the swirling galaxies and pinpoint ancient-light stars

converge into a milky beige

we are made of course

of stardust

you will have read it on a greeting card

all the same molecules of far off space created all at once when nothing became everything in one BANG

I mean I don’t know who thought of the name the Big Bang but I suppose it is physicists’ idea of a joke

the creation of the universe named like a kids party trick

there was no colour for a long time

it was too hot for colour

it took a long time

time that bends and pools and flows into waves and streams of colour

when I said my favourite colour was grey

a colleague asked me if I was ok

blue was a popular choice

‘ocean blue’

those who considered themselves more radical chose red

or hot pink

the thing that is unique about me

is that the atoms of exploding stars and somersaulting blackholes that make me

the magic trick hydrogen molecules conjured when the universe made itself

the invisible colours and reflected wavelengths your brain sees as me

also make you

but I am me

and you are you

fucking miracles