INK POETRY READ

The Color Blue

by Nina Collay '17

Did you know the ancient greeks
had no word 
for the color blue?

Or rather
Can you imagine a grecian
a few thousand years ago
looking up and wondering
“will anyone ever name the sky
or the way the sea looks 
when the sun hits it just right
or my mother’s favorite flowers
that i took her when she was dying?”
​
wondering
“will they ever put a name to
the flash of a butterfly’s wing
or the inside of a cave
or the way the world feels at twilight?”

wondering
“will they have a word
for what it feels like
to drip with so much grief 
that you think you’ll melt away
or how it feels
to see the world
through a light haze of sorrow?”

Can you imagine
that person learning
how so many things
fit into one 
four-letter-word?

Can you imagine what they will feel?

Do you imagine it 
as wonder
at the reach of a single word
or sorrow
at so many stories lost?

casually tossed aside
in favor of simplicity–
a world of memories reduced
compressed into
a curl of lips
a flick of tongue
a sigh
and nothing more.