what is color?

Red Roofs, Marc Chagall, 1954

above freedom, beyond imagination
higher than any abstraction
lies life’s interrogations

childlike sensibility
refined imagination
temperamental undertones

yearning, loss and gravity
dreamy reverie
synthetic Fauvism
a city built of wood

dramatic over sized spiritually significant
jewel hardened foam: passages for light

images copied from schoolbooks
ripe ordered tabernacle colors
sentimental poetic gifts
unashamed responsive humor
cultural innovation

balloons euphorically float
familiar, throbbing gypsy melodies
paint painful jazz, hebrew-style

prayers prior to buttered bread
road to exile, tragic loss
galley slave’s eternal symbol

a certain pre-surrealistic impractically
drives the artist to paint every roof red

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I wrote this based on The Wikipedia article on Marc Chagall

Written for:

Magpie Tales – Mag 110

Photo Credit:  Olga’s Gallery