Muddled palette

 


The literature that I’ve read is a motley of hues of life. Give me a palette, and I will pinpoint it on the exact two ends: the light and dark.

Lyrical eulogies, a lament to the iridescence of life whispering passed by, whether it is a tribute or a tirade for the bygones.

In the dog-eared poetry collections that I once upon a rainy afternoon perused through, there were eulogies full of mythical maidens vanishing under the mist, tributes to the gilded age of fleeting togas under the honey-streaked sun and recalls of the tranquil noons spent under sylph-like tree branches under which Dionysus’ saccharine stream of wine flows past the blood-red hyacinths.

There were also torments where the wind thrashes so hard that the glimmer of the candle beside the quilt pen barely flickers, the scribbles scratched in the dinginess of a confined cabin aboard a rocky ship amidst the vast ocean, or the stanzas of exasperation during a murky winter night and with the withering heat of the coal.

I’m too young to experience heartbreaks and torments, but too old to immerse myself back in the fantasy land of the unknown facets of time.

Poe isn’t here to console me on a tempestuous night, nor Keats is here to pour into my ears the sweet lullabies of the lire like the words rhymed in his odes.

What faces me here is a brick of life splattered with all shades of gray, ready to be swung at full speed anytime. I can only count all the greyness traversing back and forth, aching my eyes to the very core. Is the exquisite harmony of art long gone?

And yet, what should I do? Wander away like a cloud in Wordsworth’s, to nowhere I belong? Or run towards to catch the velocity of life, embrace it with all I could, only to be suffocated with the immense weight it thrusts?

I’m yet to find the answer, but for all my heart, I yearn nothing less than this burlesque show of color that life brings, not literature.

----
*Author's note: 
This is one of my few free-verse poems, which depicts my observance of the contrast between literature and real life. Ever since I was introduced to classical poetry in middle school, I have been fascinated with not only its exquisite language but also the air of nostalgia injected into every word. I have been constantly wondering about how the yearning for the past is omnipresent regardless of time while appreciating the beauty of nature, especially how everything is teeming with life in springtime. As life is getting more hectic than it has ever been (at least for me), I wrote this poem on a night with my scraped strength after three hours of schoolwork. However, my efforts for a Poe-esque rant became more or less worthwhile, as I got to perform this poem at a school-wide event - my first-ever poetry recital! It was so cripplingly nerve-wracking at first, but the whole experience was so exhilarating with the big rewarding applause after my performance (notwithstanding having to adjust my mask every stanza!)

Oh, and the thumbnail photo is of the Vancouver Public Library, one of the best places on Earth and even more wonderful when you could enjoy pizza and coke on their rooftop on a sunny Sunday. Cheers!

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