Primary Colours

The seventies lived loud and bright

My childhood painted with their light

TV the only black and white.

My favourite jeans were violet cords

Inked with pink grafitti words:

‘The pen is mightier than the sword.’

I ran around in purple prose

The palette spilled across my clothes

And tinted my young hopes with rose.

School dress was forest green and tan

That sprouted sheafs of yellow grain –

A wheaten past bequeathed its name

And kept our red-cheeked schoolgames fed

On hunky slices of brown bread.

Reading was my other food

The textbook grades were multi-hued:

Amber, ruby, aqua-blue,

A jewelled rainbow in my head;

From print to heart the dye has bled –

My favourite colour still is… read.