Welcome to Poetically Yours. Poetically Yours showcases poems by northern Illinois poets. This week’s featured poet is Lise Schlosser.
Schlosser changed her career to social work after several decades working in the education field. She has written poetry since she was child. Her work appeared in publications during high school. Lise is a life-long resident of the DeKalb area. Schlosser wrote this during WNIJ’s Poetically Yours Workshop using the prompt Blues playlist. It's called “The blues.”
I get to be the one with them
In the beginning
As they name their blues
One 50-minute-hour at a time.
Indigo. Prussian. Cerulean. “I don’t know.”
Their blues are sometimes stormy
Often still and pale. Faded even. Hard to make out
Occasionally bright and promising.
We spend our days gazing at the shades
We observe the ways the blues change when arranged
This way or that
We pick up some scraps and realize
They don’t even have a place here
Passed down from another who couldn’t
Use them to create
But when we hold them to the light
We know they are not right
At least not for them
And at least not now
And so they choose to set it aside
To remove it and to provide
Space for something new
And they come back the next week
Worried
That the color they brought to add is
too much
Too different
Too bright
What will people think about it being nothing like the blues they used before?
What if, they shyly ask, they want to choose orange instead of blue as they move ahead?
And I get to remind them that there are no rules
Only what feels right for them now
I point out that orange is the complement to blue
Between the two they contain all of the primary colors
The basics they need to build all the rest of the shades they will need
The blues they originally brought will fade and change
As they paint their new scenes
But because they persisted
Their life’s art will have colors
they didn’t even imagine existed when we met
And being along for that journey
Is an art all its own.
