Colors! Colors! Colors!

October is my favorite month. This morning I woke up to a shower of gold as the sugar maple at our back deck let loose with its leaves on a stormy morning. (See pic.)

Here in Michigan October can be glorious! I recently posted about searching for ways to get autumn smells into my writing. But lately, due to the beautiful sugar maples, oaks, Norway maples, burning bushes, and sweet gum tress that are turning bright colors—I am overwhelmed by the desire to figure out to describe the precise color of some of the leaves I see on my walks. Terms like “red,” “yellow,” “orange” and even “gold” are not always sufficient.

I have a friend whose mother is in her seventies and still working as a model. She NEVER describes colors as simply “blue,” “green” or “pink.” She always uses terms like “sea foam,” “jade” or “raspberry.” It’s a bit silly sometimes—but the listener can always envision exactly what she is talking about.

So I’ve been making a list of my favorite stand-in color words for this autumn wonder. Synonyms, I suppose. There are the metallic words, of course: gold, bronze, copper, and brass. A word I particularly like is “amber.” Amber can be any color from a deep russet to a sunny gold. So sometimes it need an additional descriptor. “Russet.” There’s another word I like!

For the reds there are words like: russet, amber, crimson, carrot, flame, coral, blush, rust, magenta, maroon, scarlet, carmine, ruby, wine, burgundy, chestnut, and sorrel—to name just a few. Isn’t “sorrel” lovely? For yellows the stand-ins could be: amber, flaxen, lemon, saffron, buff, honey, sunshine, butterscotch, caramel, fawn, and tawny. Isn’t “tawny” great? For orange I can’t think of as many. Certainly, amber again—and copper, melon, brass, apricot. For shades of brown there is amber again. And then there are some other wonderful browns. For example, I could say that the leaves around here are copper, umber, toast-colored, chocolate, mahogany, fawn, ginger, coffee, chestnut, and cinnamon. Why are so many of the brown colors food words? And finally, there are some very fine stand-ins for the green shades. (Yes, we still have some green leaves hanging on.) There is emerald, beryl, forest green, lime, olive, jade, and willow. “Willow green.” Beautiful!

It is at this time of year that I pay the most attention to getting sensual detail into my writing. With that thought, I offer you an original poem (below). You can tell that I am concerned here with things seen (remembered) as well as the sound, the taste, and the feel of things. But . . . I’m still having trouble with that sense of smell! Oh well. That just leaves more fun for me as I keep on tweaking the poem.

I hope you are all happily writing, as well.

Ciao! Shutta

Summer Portrait

She disappeared through the door,

her limp house dress a swirl of dust motes

in the hot afternoon, in the random stillness of memory.

There may have been an ice cube tray smacked

against the metal-rimmed countertop,

the plinking of cubes into jelly glasses,

and a furious crackling as ice fissured in lemonade.

There may have been a murmur of sullen air

skulking through the dry switch grass.

We may have carried kitchen chairs

out into the shade of the crippled willow.

The Buick may have been on blocks by then,

beleaguered by goldenrod and purple asters.

And I don’t recall if static from the transistor radio

masked droning cicadas. Or if she spoke at all.

But like the surprise of finding a cicada’s husk—

there remains a fragile lace of memory. The slap

of pink flip-flops on the hard-pack of the yard,

half-moons of watermelon on yellow plates,

and the sticky wash of juice meandering down arms.

(copyright:2009 Shutta)