Purple

Purple

Every day the ground is purpling
and donning deeper shades of green.

I have a brother who went through a phase
where if you asked him a question
he didn’t care to answer, he’d blink slowly,
smirk, and say,
“purple.”

I have a son who shares this gene, 
but his answer is always “Jeff”—
the name of our dog, 
who romps ahead through purple and green,
tastes the tops of flowers and the
lush grass, wet from nighttime rain. 

I remind Jeff
that he’ll likely barf.
He gives his standard answer:
a wagging tail. 

Is there something
I keep repeating?

Like green
at the slightest provocation
of warmth or rain?

Like a name,
like a tale,
like grass
in my throat? 

Jeff, enjoying an indigestible second breakfast

The Prompt

When I began writing the above poem into the Notes app on my phone while walking with Jeff (this is how most of my poems begin), I had no idea where the opening line would take me. I started with colors—purple and green—and let them tell me where to go next.

If you’d like a prompt to play with today (remember, off-prompt poems are always welcome here, too), then pick a color, any color, and let it be your guide. You might want to walk through your home or office or yard, observing every instance of this color. You might want to sit and reflect on the memories and associations that are bound together with this particular hue. You might want to simply close your eyes, settle into darkness, and take note of what color appears inside of you. My poem ended up wrapping itself around two colors, and that is also totally fine. Grab the whole rainbow if you want! I look forward to reading your color-inspired poems . . . or whatever other poem you end up writing.

But wait, one more thing!

So I have this idea I want to pitch to all you lovely lyricists. I’m thinking it would be oodles of fun to play a game of telephone together. Here’s how it would work: I would write a poem and send it via DM or email to one of you. You would have a few days to write your own poem that contains at least one phrase, line, image, or distinctive word from my poem and send it back to me. I’d then forward that on to the next participant, who would write a poem containing a phrase/line/image/word from your poem, which would then be sent to the next participant, and so on, until we make it through the full list of poets. At that point, I’d share the entire collection (in order, giving credit to each poet unless someone prefers to remain anonymous) here on 100 Poems.

What do you think? Who wants to play?

One little logistical thing to ease your worries . . . if you opt to participate and it’s your turn, but I send you a poem at a horribly inconvenient time, and you can’t write a response poem within 2 or 3 days, don’t sweat it. You can always either bow out or let me know that you’d like to be bumped farther down the line.

If you’re interested in participating, you can let me know in the comments or via DM or by replying to this email!

Thank you for being my absolute favorite online community!