Who says blue’s for
melancholy?
Not me.
Not here.
 
I crunch through marsh grass
   side-stepping a sea of
   blue-twinkling
   new-blooming marsh heather.
 
I stoop for a tide-tossed mussel shell,
   trace my finger along
   blue-gray swirls inside a
   pearls-mooth rim;
 
I spy far-off hydrangea
   balls bouncing
   blue above
   old stone boulders.
 
I pluck the sweetness of
   blueberries from
   blue-heavy branches,
   blue-splashed bushes.
 
I eavesdrop on
   blue jays scolding
   a cloud-patched sky
   a wave-rumpled river.
 
Don’t sing those blues
   for me
   not in August
   not in my blue world.
 
 
This poem first appeared in Getting the Knack (National Council of Teachers of English, 1992).
Used here with permission.