Living Colour

It has always been with me I think

but when did the knowing begin?

Turning four I knew for sure.

It was a red-letter day

because I loved red best,

and four is red,

like M but softer.

Two is blue

but not as dark as W.

Language is every rainbow color,

with black, white, browns and grays, too.

Letters, numbers, words, names.

I read them, I hear them, I think them

and the colours are there,

inseparable, in my head.

“It’s raining cats and dogs,” I hear someone say.

Yes, I see them,

the warm yellow cats and pale blue-grey dogs.

Not the animals, the words

tumbling down in the royal blue rain.

My name is yellow,

but not cat yellow.

Laurie is nearly-white yellow

and never black like Lori or Lorrie or Laura.

Erin with an E is orangey tan,

but Aaron with an A is the lightest gray.

Black-haired Erin and ginger-haired Laura

confuse me with their mismatched names

until I memorize what goes with who.

And even then …

it’s just wrong.

The stream of colour is a low hum

when words are strung together,

a filtered, flattened, faded noise.

But it’s there, in the background

of every conversation,

in every line of text.

A colour may briefly glimmer

and float on by

or burst suddenly into the dull scenery

of fast-marching words.

Vocabulary in living color.

And just now a word jumps out.

“Vocabulary” is the colour of honey

in a glass jar.

It pops its honey head up high,

needing to be seen.

Synesthesia.

I’ve come to learn this pale orange word.

Sensory and cognitive pathways

in wayward embraces

breed this variety of involuntary visions

called grapheme-color.

Terry has it too,

my brother with the emerald-green name.

We disagree about the particular colors

but happily share this odd syndrome.

It is not a gaff, but a gift of nature, rarely bestowed.

OCD is white (and I may have a touch).

It tells me where to end,

here at verse four with four times four lines,

because four is red,

the color I still love best.