Not long ago, I was teasing a friend who has humorously banned the word "grey" from the journal he edits, claiming it's a symptom of a morose worldview that he doesn't want to encourage. I pointed out to him that there are some terrific poems about that color in itself. The one that came immediately to my mind was Elinor Wylie's "Puritan Sonnet"--
Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones
There's something in this richness that I hate.
I love the look, austere, immaculate,
Of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones.
There's something in my very blood that owns
Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate,
A thread of water, churned to milky spate
Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones.
I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray,
Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meager sheaves;
That spring, briefer than apple-blossom's breath,
Summer, so much too beautiful to stay;
Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves,
And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.
And Rose Kelleher pointed me to a more contemporary poem in the same vein, Dorianne Laux's
"Ode to Gray."
My friend hasn't altered his editorial position, but he did grant that those poems were exceptional.
A day or two later, I chanced on Rhina Espaillat's sonnet "Brown," in
Where Horizons Go.
I'm going to take that as a sign that a thread should be started. Can you point us to other poems, either by greats or by contemporaries other than ourselves, that are color studies?