When I was younger, (quite a lot younger actually), I wrote a poem (well, a few words really, nothing as high falutin’ as a poem) and driving to work today I was reminded of that because the way to work can go through a rather lovely wooded area near a river which hosts a cycle track. I love green, I guess it’s the colour of my soul! but it’s not only the colour of MY soul apparently, it is a shade that denotes renewal and resurrection to Christians and it the colour of Islamic paradise.
We all associate green with Spring of course, and are happy seeing the first mist or fog of colour before there’s even a bud to be seen. Might that be some sort of collective hallucination do you think? Because if you look closer there really are no buds. It’s the colour of safety, GO GO GO. The one we expect anxiously when we’re in a hurry, not the red one please! and of course it’s the colour of the Irish. Why is Ireland called the Emerald Isle? Probably truer as tourist-hype than the monicker given to Sardinia’s Costa Smeralda! Unless of course that refers to the sea and in that case I haven’t got a leg to stand on! How many shades of green do the Irish say their lovely island has?
And what about money? The Americans call or called their bills greenbacks and it’s the colour associated with envy in English “I am green with envy at the number of greenbacks that green guy in the office has”. (We also say that people who are inexperienced are green!)
It’s supposed to have healing powers and is the most restful and relaxing of all colours. Curiously our exam papers were always printed on wishy-washy pale green paper. When I asked about it I was told it helps calm student nerves.”They paint prisons this colour too Anne” the teacher said. Yes, well….(But honestly, I think most students need a wake-up colour) However, back to our psychological insights: it can enhance vision, stability and endurance .It takes up more space in the colour spectrum visible to the human eye. And so, finally, here’s my “poem”:
I never do seem to be able
To get enough of green.
The Virginia creeper
Jungles its way over the terracotta tiles
Quilting them.
No leaf mosaic here
In these depths,
The fugues of paler, tinier greens
Unpaintable.
And my gaze keeps hovering back
Until my retina is forested in green,
Never,never enough……
Not like the kaleidescope of Autumn reds, rarer
Punctuated with grape-blue tiny berries
You can admire them for some minutes,
Even every day and feel content.
But the greens,the greens
Never satiate.
English that grows 