The Problem of Describing Color
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If I said – remembering in summer,
The cardinal’s sudden smudge of red
In the bare gray winter woods –
If I said, red ribbon on the cocked straw hat
Of the girl with pooched-out lips
Dangling a wiry lapdog
In the painting by Renoir –
If I said fire, if I said blood welling from a cut –
Or flecks of poppy in the tar-grass scented summer air
On a wind-struck hillside outside Fano –
If I said, her one red earring tugging at her silky lobe,
If she tells fortunes with a deck of fallen leaves
Until it comes out right –
Rouged nipple, mouth –
(How could you not love a woman
Who cheats at the Tarot?)
Red, I said. Sudden, red.
by Robert Hass
from Time and Materials. Poems 1997-2005
Ecco (HarperCollins Publishers), New York, 2007
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