Blue: A reflection

What could have been

Spoken rendition of “Blue”.

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Inspiration

Blue was inspired during a family vacation on the western shore of Michigan, a beautiful place where I have spent time every summer for two decades. Any natural setting holds many colors to contemplate… tan sand, green beach grass, orange and black monarchs, golden sun, violet sunsets, the bright white moon, deep red flowers. But when you stand on the coast of a large body of water and look out, blue fills your entire view. The shades change continuously as clouds morph and the sun moves across the sky, almost as if color is alive. Even the horizon where sky meets water could be a clear and distinct line or a place where one can only guess where air turns into liquid. Look long enough at this spot and you may disappear into the blue entirely.

Colors often represent and trigger thoughts and emotions, but these certainly vary dramatically from person to person. As I wrote, the color blue felt like a mysterious pull with a firm grip and an open heart, a possibility for the one who stares into the clear sky, and even a threat to the one who is caught in its liquid power. Like changing shades, what this color says seems to be different with each read, even to its author. I love poetry that contains open space to determine what the poem is asking or stating, and I hope as you read Blue, each time color is mentioned you let your own emotions and thoughts emerge and merge. Blue is just a color and maybe it means everything, anything, or nothing at all.

Two common phrases in our vernacular are “Out of the blue” and “Into the blue”. These are mysterious phrases, the blue representing something that cannot be better named, described, or embodied. What comes out of the blue, and what goes into it? What will someone find when they arrive in the blue? When something comes out of the blue, will it be stained blue? We find ourselves trying to uncover answers to these types of questions (maybe not that last one), but isn’t it interesting that often there is more peace with just holding large questions, more than any answer that we may find.

Photo by Dmitry Ratushny on Unsplash

First theme

The first overarching theme of this poem is an encouragement to the parts of ourselves that wonder what could have been. Exploring personal regret certainly is a painful process, but let’s not stop there and just suffer. Knowing our regret is a large step to uncovering the deepest desires of our heart and can inform new questions that hold potential. Two that I pose to you are, “What is” and “What could be”? I am approaching 40 years old and a type of 40 in which I have held large adult responsibilities for all of my adult life, having been married almost 20 years, a father for over 15 of those, held a mortgage for most of that time, and have pursued a career that often demands a lot of energy and mental power, some days more than I may want to give. Like all seasons, this time has held incredible beauty and terrible difficulty, both shaping who I have morphed into today. However, I certainly have plenty I have not experienced or done that many people my age have, and there are skills and traits that I set aside and have not pursued. While this could inspire some sort of crisis, I hold closely, or at least keep coming back to the knowledge that the universe offers a tangible freedom to find life in what we hold today, and we live in a universe in which newness cannot help but emerge in ways that we cannot fathom.

as you finally kneel
to admire a wild
blue flower
that whispers
into the blue

it is not too late

Second theme

This poem also holds flavors of historical wisdom literature and a freedom to embrace the mystery embedded in those texts. In this case, for those familiar with the Christian tradition, you likely heard themes you recognized.

-          Go therefore, from the end of the book of Matthew.

-          Wilderness, a theme throughout much of the bible.

-          Stepping onto water, a story of faith and disorientation.

-          Word becoming flesh, a purely mystical writing.

-          Scripture, as in inspired words.

-          Kneeling, an act of submission.

-          Calling, one’s main purpose.

-          Rainbow, a promise represented by a visual we only see periodically, even though the light spectrum is always present.

It is only human to attempt to make sense of things that we cannot seem to grasp. Learning happens this way, but it seems when an answer to something mysterious arrives, we know we have found a glimpse of truth when it opens up other unanswerable questions. This poem attempts to build a feeling of mystery around these phrases through purposeful placement, including in a way that may disorient someone who is well versed in this tradition and has begun to overlook the mystery.

to write a verse
your blue soul
has always known
that now
becomes flesh,
blue ink rising
between blue lines
that crest
as the side
of your palm
breaks onto shore

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Mystery places something deep inside of us that we will never fully unravel. As we comb through the many we encounter, we may come to understand a question, but whatever answer we find always opens more layers to examine. Let us look at our past and our regrets and use them to inform where we place our attention and future effort.

May you experience color this day.

Brian

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If you missed the “A Poem” post of Blue, I hope you will read and enjoy! You can find it here.

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