Which Color? 2 Comments
To be fit for display on the Tree of Knowledge
A fruit's skin must rouse you, yet signal danger
A certain jungle fruit would never make the grade
More enticing to monkeys than to temptresses
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It's inspiring to read someone who combines technical skill with a good ear and profound content. Your poem is stuffed with very fine lines. Was particularly impressed by " Raise bright crowns to smile back at the sun" . Sorry for the long overdue response to your kind comments on one of mine. I've found your tempting buttercup at last and gladly took a bite out of your juicy but dangerous apple. Thank you.
To smile back! ! While you search for the truth. Thanks for sharing this poem with us.
A very interesting exploration of the color yellow in its various hues and moods. I like the intrigue you introduce with the tree of knowledge. Favorite image is the clown suit (banana skin?) and the dandelions, which I thought were sunflowers.
It's perceptive of you to get what I was driving at. Indeed, the " clown suit" refers to a banana skin. (Perhaps because a banana skin is associated with pratfalls, heh heh!)
Vibgyor o rainbow bows on the life puzzling life riddle of selection the breath swims on the colorful fiber catch a root at stake................................ great 10+++++++++++++++++++++++
there is color color of knowledge delineated but with no rainbow ....................../// great poem of wisdom
The title of this poem captivates me to read this beautifully crafted write. The flow and wording are just fantastic. If I may to answer your riddle, I would go with yellow. Lines 4,5,8 and 9 are my keys to the answer of this riddle, a banana. In to my poem list, a unique write.10
Because you point to lines 4,5,8 and 9, I know you are clued in about my riddling strategy. Those lines both reveal and hide a certain fruit, and that is my main example. However, lines 10-13 use a different fruit as an example. Do you know which fruit?
I love this poem and the riddle it contained. Yes, I got yellow because of the color when held below a child's chin. I remember doing this myself with buttercups! Your language is beautifully written and when read aloud, your poetry has a sense of calm in its rhythm which I like very much. When I read it, I imagine a mail speaker with a soft but commanding low-pitched voice who is sitting in the grass, legs crossed, wearing the garb of a monk, but the gown is white. Strange, isn't it. ;) None of that matters. I enjoy your poetry and your superb writing skill. I enjoy reading poetic interpretations on the tree of knowledge and the idea of a fruit that rouses one yet signals danger is intriguing and then layered in with the riddle of color. Thanks for sharing.
Hello Pamela. It is amazing that you were able to visualize a monk's garb. I actually spent a few years in a monastery. Both of us were able to visualize something about each. I saw an image of a blonde-haired woman when reading poems under your other moniker, which has no picture.
I like what you say about layering in the riddle of color. When one comes at the tree of knowledge from this angle, the color of its fruit seems to be a signal. Many things in nature strike us as signals once we are sensitized to their meaning. Once I get into a riddling frame of mind, I enjoy making composite riddles.
Wow i say, a truly sensational poem in gorgeous description! Makes me tink of my fav fruit, custard apples, succulent n juicy like yor poem. Cheers n tnx for yor reviews, made me giggle.
This poem not only appeals to my love of colour but opens me up to all other senses in an extraordinary way with great dexterity and rhythmical prowess. I've been missing a great deal, not having read you before, Denis. Tom Billsborough
I read the poem over and over again, trying to find the 'clue' on which colour. In your poem, you mentioned these things such as, monkey, handle (I imagined its shape) , an ingrating scent, a slippery smooth heart, cream, to be stripped, while a Greek fruit in the same sun-struck hue... My first impression was banana colour - yellow?
Thanks for commenting, and you're right, the poem is about the color yellow. What interests me is the different kinds of yellow. The yellow of the banana seems relaxed, as if languidly accepting the sun's gifts in an afternoon daydream../ The yellow of the lemon is more intense, like the sun's power captured in a color that still gives a sense of restlessness. The yellow of the dandelion is most wonderful. Children play a game of holding dandelions underneath their chins. The child's playmate can see a wonderful yellow glow on the skin. It is only in the shadow (under the chin) that the yellow glow appears. If you hold the dandelion close to your skin in open light, you will not see this yellow glow. Did you play that game as a child? It glows under your chin because the flower reflects ultra-violet as well as yellow light. The ultra-violet light gives an extra glow to the reflection, but only in shadow. The life-creating spirit sends greeting cards in the form of details.
Dear Denis It is so nice. I am teaching my 5 years old son English. The first thing he learnt when we were in the park was dandelions and it reminds me of a childhood cartoon called the story of perrin Thanks for sharing
My Dad used to put dandelions under our chins when we were kids. I love the phrase cloy the guts. Nice Denis.
I did not solve the riddle but working backwards from the answer I can now see many clues indicating yellow. What I liked in your poem was the BLANK VERSE. This blank verse as the Elizabethans wrote it, with sturdy words creating both rhythm and the color. And each line is packed with details that confers gravitas on them. I Ilike this density of language in poetry. There is another model - Gary Snyder does it - with only a single image per line which makes lines light and airy. But you can't make a detailed descrioption or develop an argument, and so I responded in line after line to the ABUNDANCE you bring to the poem. You make poetry carry a heavy load of detail as if it were the easiest thing to accomplish! Theremis a Spirit of Lightness within your blank verse.
Thank you Daniel. Yes, there is a touch of Gary Snyder in my writing, and the single line images of Chinese poets have influenced me. You are right: I aspire to writing with lightness AND richness of detail, which seems paradoxical. Richness in a small compass implies density and perhaps heaviness. I juxtapose your comment with A. Madhavan's below, taking encouragement from yours and a valid cautionary note from his. He thinks colors are like moods, which don't have demarcated categories. Indeed, to handle color in a truly poetic spirit, one would have to immerse oneself in the color-mood and write fluidly and subjectively from within that. I tend to objectivize and demarcate my categories. Maybe that comes from my interest in biology. Being preoccupied with demarcations can make one's work feel wooden. This is my fate. Even driftwood wants to be carried down the poetic stream when the waters rise. Even rational cogitations want to enter into a lyrical dance eventually, though they may end up looking like dancing elephants.
Thanks, I thought of Mango, but it doesn't fit your description. For me, colours (reject the red underlining; it is my choice of spelling, Mr.Spell-check) , for me colours are like moods, which do not have demarcated categories. Your poem is a riddle, all right. Some of your phrases are 'shimmering with inner radiance'. Where is the Sinic influence? I wrote a mango poem once, hoping it would please a kid. Madhavan
You touch on something important here, Sir. Colors are indeed like moods, and to handle them by demarcation of categories seems foreign to their essence. I freely admit that I often objectivize the things I write about. A poet-friend Meng Lang once said my imagery gives him a muggy feeling, and there is lack of ventilation between lines. (He is an advocate of broken lines that let in plenty of air and light.) I admit that his comment is to some extent justified, but I have set myself on this path of writing and I suppose I'll have to write my way out of it. As for your mention of Sinitic influence, it is definitely there. I think the direction of reference of Chinese imagery tends to be inward, contemplating the associations that open up while holding something before the mind's eye. Sometimes I like to explore the associational field of a single image. .
Oh, boy, I thought I had it solved but as I read further I decided that I am, as I warned you, CLUELESS. My guess was yellow as in banana but I was leery because I answered so quickly. Probably some obscure hint leads a bright person to answer gold or some beautiful crayon color like butternut or lemon. Sigh. Now I have been outed as a close relative to the Scarecrow as in If I Only Had A Brain.
Yellow. Creationists believe that the banana is proof, with its form fitting function, but the banana as we know it now has been modified by man to the present state. As a child, holding a dandelion under one's chin and seeing the yellow glow on the skin meant that you liked butter.: -)
I take a jaundiced view of confirming the answer to a riddle in public, but... According to a web source, the dandelion (or buttercup) reflects both yellow and ultraviolet wavelengths, which causes a glow to appear on your skin, a kind of black light poster effect. Thanks for reading! I have another color riddle titled: WHICH COLOR?
There are many fruits that ape the sun's aura when ripe and are attractive 'with ingratiating scent and slippery heart' and shaped to fit the mouth! So I am at loss to say what it is....... Is it the egg fruit which is creamy and is of bright orange and golden hue! A great puzzle poem to rake the brain! Great diction!
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7/18/2025 2:32:41 PM # 1.0.0
'And surprise children when held beneath the chin A trick to reveal something rich and fine within' A very early beautiful memory that somehow filled me with wonder. By the poems ending it screamed yellow repeated from bananas to flowers, yellow a cheerful colour.
and don't forget the lemons...
I wrote the poems 'Countless Small Daisies: Delight Daisy Chain Mind', 'Daisy Chains Childhood Memories', 'Daisy Chains Fragile Fresh Stem Links' and 'Daisy Chains Delight Eyes Craft Grown Weaved', inspired by the poem 'Which Color? 2', by the poet Denis Mair and dedicated to Denis Mair.
I wrote the poems 'Take Grown Gift A Single Buttercup Plucked', 'Buttercup Golden Light Shining Under A Child's Chin', 'Moments Timeless In Buttercup Chin Golden Light', inspired by the poem 'Which Color? 2', by the poet Denis Mair and dedicated to the poet Denis Mair.
I wrote the poems 'Bright Yellow Leprechaun Gold Hidden Under Child Shadow Chins', 'Who Remembers First Thrill Catching Golden Rays? ', 'Buttercup Song Sings Laughs Smiles In Sunlight', inspired by the poem 'Which Color? 2', by the poet Denis Mair and dedicated to the poet Denis Mair.