A study in bloom

I was assigned two colors at birth

based on the tone and shape of my surface.

Between my legs some folds of flesh.

She is Pink! the experts express.

And the pink of my skin,

with just a drop of melanin,

required they also assign me White.

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But I wonder why this would be true,

when I’ve been graced with full spectrum perception.

So from where did stem their miseducation?

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Please join me, let’s dive into this chromatic dialectic..

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Western academics,

with their lab coats and clinics,

wax the master of physics

while warping his Opticks.

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The story is simple:

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In the beginning, there was light

composed of three colors as pure as they were bright.

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Red Yellow Blue

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Mix all the colors? You get white

Mix any two? Get any hue

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But when the painter aims to capture light on surface

it appears as though all the rules reverse,

that RYB is the artist’s curse

never recreating what we see with our eyes,

leaving the palette unsatisfied.

For when light and matter do collide

the veil lifts from empirical lies:

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Only what can be counted is true.

Each color’s calculated

with waves

its value’s not debated.

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But If it can’t be measured, does it exist?

Yes!

Magenta is proof of this.

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She has no wavelength;

of our brains she’s just a figment

and now, modernly, also a pigment.

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Under her leadership

it’s safe to say,

from the grip of the old

there’s another way!

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And out from the shadow of RYB

emerged a new group of three

and so began a rivalry

between colors

those primary:

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Enter Cyan, Yellow, and Magenta

such saccharine saturation,

the technicolor dream

of LCD and silver screen

whose colors when mixed get us Red, Blue, and Green,

our eye’s three receptors,

and all colors between.

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But no, that’s not right,

complained many men (who are White),

When light turns to matter it’s tainted, impure

that’s why your colors painted aren’t bright!

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Because white light is divine

and separate from Earth

planet of cardinal sin

the domain of evil hedonism

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God teases:

I deal in light.

Can you, with your mud, recreate dawn and twilight?

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The Earth takes a season to reply.

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From rays on clay she weaves filaments

that end in pollen and petals, and the seduction of bees.

Then, in time, from bushes and trees

branches hang heavy with ripe ovaries.

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And so,

late summer,

Fuchsia is a fruit.

So are Peach, Cherry, Plum,

they must be in cahoots..

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Together tossed with a blessing from the bee,

that slutty sex elixir,

molten, golden, honey,

the air’s filled with fragrances fine

past my lips through my throat

they buzz down my spine.

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Close my eyes

lick the spoon

feel the rush

of amber ooze.

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So generous in her motherly role,

The Earth just served God sunset in a bowl.

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Ok fine let’s play, says God one day.

How about the fluorescent flash of my lightning bolt?

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I’ll make you that color and raise you its static jolt.

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Who does she call for this hit of electricity?

Superb! that bird of paradise accepts fervently

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His dance hypnotic

-clap-snap-clack-

leaves me

eyes wide,

drooling and jaw a-slack

-I’m powerless against

that metallic neon teal

backed by matte black.

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Ah in the garden such sensations I’ve collected

awaken truths science has long neglected:

that parts beyond eyes have sight perfected

as color is much more than light reflected.

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But where was I?

Oh yes, just dreaming of the birds and the bees

who indeed have offered alternate theories:

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That colors are here to remind us pleasure is free,

gifts from the Earth inviting reciprocity.

While all unique, each is common currency.

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With wisdom held in the meat of my animality

I know now I’m born without impurity

so far beyond the limits of Cartesian duality.

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I was raised in a world of boxes, borders, and cages

but I rebelled,

and today,

I prefer unruled pages.

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And because I am fully human and fully divine,

and my physical vessel is rightly mine,

and because on my flag my desires fly,

I’ll take it as a sign..

now sovereign in my being

it’s time to reassign,

It’s with Magenta Yellow Cyan that I do align.

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So though the form of color has me question what is true,

and whatever were the colors assigned to you,

I know my Magenta Yellow Cyan mean

that between us

true love can bloom.

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