She thought it was green, not <br />the emerald green of Indian summer <br />but a green like a darkening plain, <br />or the shadow rivers cast. <br />She thought it was light, a glint <br />or a warning, the shine <br />at the papery edge <br />of storm clouds. The way <br />a voice rising and falling becomes <br />a premonition, a dampness <br />at the back of her neck. Or maybe <br />it was more of an imprint, <br />a memory of sound, some afternoon <br />after the circus has left town <br />and all that remains is a field <br />strewn with garbage, a music <br />of pasted stars and ruin. <br />And she thought of a color <br />like that, mud-green, the green <br />of a small sadness, shapeless <br />as the wind itself. And for a moment <br />she owned everything inside it, <br />the light, the field, the wind. <br /> <br /> —for Adrian <br /> <br /> <br />First published in American Poetry Review.<br /><br />Silvia Curbelo<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/learning-to-play-coltrane/
