GRAY

I felt gray all day yesterday, and when I walked out in late afternoon, the world around me looked as gray as a Thomas Hardy poem, "Neutral Tones," specifically. The phrase "as though chidden of God," kept running through my head.

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928). Wessex Poems and Other Verses. 1898.

8. Neutral Tones


WE stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod,
—They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.

Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles solved years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro—
On which lost the more by our love.

The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
Like an ominous bird a-wing….

Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree,
And a pond edged with grayish leaves.

1867.



Today is Saint Patrick's Day, though, and everything is supposed to be green. So I made my gray scenes green, through the magic of digital technology. (You might need to put on your shades for these!)





Tomorrow I'll go looking for natural green and begin to feel "like a natural woman," again.