A Limited Palette

Walking in the hardware store, you are aware
that any color you can imagine is available.
A drib of this. A dab of that, and like magic
the perfect color in a can, ready to go.

So much different than a few hundred years ago,
when colors were limited to what was available
in nature and nearby. A limited palette
that still somehow, sometimes, created perfection.

About this poem

A poem about paint colors. The yellow in the photograph is one of my favorites, a 19th-century classic (and least here in the North East) paint. A color I often imagine painting my own house. I am drawn to it every time I see it.

Or a poem about accepting the limits of our choices and finding magic in what is, rather than trying to create perfection.

Poetry is never about one thing.

The photograph was taken at the Hancock Shaker Village in Hancock, Mass.

Tom