Brown
April 27 2014


Out here
the palette of winter
is blue and green.
Sky and trees, on white so white
your eyes tear up
lashes freeze.

The city stays brown.
Churned-up slush
and salt-stained boots
and people walking grimly.
Buildings hunkered down,
boxy, rooted, burning fuel
hunched against the wind.
Dull brick, and masonry
high-rise, breathtakingly
clad in tinted glass.
All eyeless,
impassive monoliths
unmoved
by the world outside.

A rabbit dashes by
in camouflage white,
a synapse, flickering
in peripheral vision.
And the dog is off
porpoising through the drifts,
then belly-deep
like a ditching machine.
A shock
of thick brown fur
across the virgin field.

I find myself returning to this theme: where nature embodies purity, and the city contamination; a simplistic anti-urban screed, I know.

I love winter and find it beautiful, but there is no denying the poverty of colour in a landscape that's primarily white. On the other hand, there is something terribly bleak about a city in winter: where fresh snow at dawn quickly becomes slush; where the feeling is inward-turning and hunkered down; and where wind-tunnel streets feel extra cold. Its palette is browns and greys; if not literally, then emotionally.

I push the trope of purity even further here, where even the dog -- a domesticated creature, a creation of man -- does not belong. Other than that, the cityscape is static, rooted; the country fluid and quick. The city is dull brown; the country blinding white, brilliant blues and greens. The city is eyeless, indifferent; the country vigilant.

The poem begins with sight, and each stanza hinges on the eye.