A Poem: "Today's Weather"

  I am taking a plein air pastel painting class this summer, so colors and values (the degree of light within hues) are more and more a part of me.  Below, a poem that commenced to spontaneously write itself.

Today's Weather

by Marlene G. McNew

Oh for the the clarity of temperate skies,

softly focused light

illuminating stable horizons.

Periwinkle is away today.

Never mind grey.

A high contrast duel rages

locally

between self-pronounced sun

and it's opposite,

the absence of all light.

It feels like I am locked

in a tiny walled-in room

in which colors have been

straightjacketed into silence.

Bur, what of magenta or

the subtlety of reseda gray green?

Is naples yellow tainted?

Was burnt sienna only a dream?

I prefer to believe that

grey permeates the troposphere.

It is the unifying truth,

the glue that blends the neutrals

with the warm and cool values.

The clouds are blended puffs

of salmon, lavender, eggplant, cobalt blue.

They fly across the sky 

in a changing dance

embracing storm,

on some days, sigh.

Perhaps weather is a state of mind,

an open gate,
 in spite of blustery winds

a concert of all the hues,

warm, cool, neutral,

an embrace of the calm
within the storm.