“Take out your blue crayon, and color the sky.”
“Now take your white crayon and color the two clouds.”
Growing up,  the sky was not free
from school rules.   Belonged to Dick, Jane,  Spot,
and Principal White.    White house owners
with blood-hued tulips or whatchacalls spilling
from boxes no carpenter planed and nailed.  Backdrop
an improbable blue.  More improbable white.  Clouds
that had they not been paper, would have been suspected
of being whipped cream taught manners and poise.
 
How many blue skies can you color?  How many
picture-book clouds?   All without going outside
the lines, mind.  One day the classroom turned slate.
Soon lightning zigzagged long windows that were shrouded
in mourning black.  School lights blew, and we kids drew
our collective breath.  Half-scared, half-mesmerized.   
My kind of sky, I thought.  Another is when evening dresses
in pink, lavender, even green.  Sky like a birthday
cake frosted by slightly tipsy bakers as big as the giant
leered down Jack’s beanstalk.   Once I got up extra early.
A blood orange had exploded.   Sun lapped the juice and left
stains in colors I searched for in vain in my Crayola box.
The rain I loved so brushed the sky with tabby cat fur.
Tan and silver stripes.  Some days reminded of the old
shiny-dull plates forced to sit next to expensive china.
Pewter? Pewter, yes.  The blue of an Illinois December
wasn’t the blue of JanuaryFebruaryMarchJuneJulyAugust-
September.  October knew blues!   Made them sing!  
Made  clouds almost as white as the ones Teacher saw.
November scrubbed most of them off.  By December, flannel-
grey made the sky look itchy.  Oyster crept, and ice.  
I want to color all the skies, I thought.  I want to
suggest them with pastels and paint them with water,
then a whole dripping easelful of messy, smelly oils
 
Now my skies are skies, almost.  Thanks to Rembrandt,
Matisse, Renoir, Van Gogh.   Host of later lights
left legacies of sky.  Thank all creation for cheap prints.  
Art will keep reminding that sky is much like each of us.
Different in our own softly, brightly, or deeply colored way.   
Beauty is. . . . .let’s say there’s a  reason most of us love
a rainbow.    Let’s run out and see what she’s wearing
right now.  Yesterday’s outfit was wren-gray.  Wrinkled
silk, or maybe it was. . .tissue–?   Foil–?

(c)  Phyllis Jean Green, October, 2005