Or linguists where you born,
And they might well be able
To tell you whether you learned
Color words for shades of blue
In the first language you knew.
In English, world’s number one
Number two language for now,
Dictionaries bloom with blues,
And novelists and poets,
Composers, pop song writers,
Entertainment spectacles,
And serious essayists
Deploy shadowy legions
Of subtly turned terms for blue.
There are books on blue and blues,
Poems on how the blue of beets
Comes and goes . . . shadow of weeds
Where beets grew. But maybe you
Grew up in one of many
Worlds without words for haint blue,
Or cerulean, royal,
Indigo, or any blue,
Just just terms for red, bright, and dark,
For instance, and then, in those
Shadows, many metaphors
Which English would call the blues.
