About Red

This maple was right down the road. What a beauty. I drove by it last week and thought, "Well, that's about everything I need to know about red." and from there I was off and running.

You can see in the background that the big oaks and sycamores have dropped their leaves already. I don’t know why I decided to add the notebook pages, maybe because this was such a straightforward poem with so few edits but I showed the edits below with strikeouts.

Audio of this poem below.

                        About Red

           Everything I need to know
                   about red is here.
            as It can fade into yellow
               or deepen into purple,
                   while passing by
               a fire engine so bright
          you could hear the fire bells
            and maybe see the flame.

                  Beets are in there
                    and cherries too,
            both remind me of blood,
       always brilliant, often startling
         and when there’s too much,
                     there’s terror.

      On this limb, there is a rusty hue
               and lower still it veers
         into the brown of dried blood.
                But enough of blood!
      when because from down here,
             on the highest branches,
                   there are yellows
                  with no visible red.
           If I could climb trees again,
                        I might see,
         even in the uppermost leaves,
                 a faint trace of pink
                  outlining each one,
           a hint of the color to come.

              There are many places
          to see what I see in this tree.
          There are apples and tulips,
                sunsets and your lips.
           Such beauty to be sought
               even here, at the end.

I started this notebook, Tinto, in late December of 2024, as my previous notebook was full. As of today I have 130 in Tinto (red) and will get his replacement in Mexico, probably Señor Azul, for a whopping 49 pesos! These are engineer’s notebooks.