J-i-poetry - Simple Poetry Blog

Clean

Rust

Isaac’s climb, abraham’s sacrifice, sarah’s son

Potent Ponds

Steeping in cool waters

The saffron sun on the

Bowl of the pond.

Taking my vitamins every

Morning, the C in my veins

Mingling with the salt in my eyes.

I ride two buses to my chapel

Of peace, a set of flowing

Waters, unblessed but holy to me.

Pacing the dusty paths of

The preserve, I ponder the

Wild waterbirds, wandering.

The ducks, unburdened by

Prejudice, finding their ways

Along the tiny beaches.

The spice of life, I infuse my days

With the fine herbs of musical

Birdsong and chords of clouds.

Finalizing my day's work,

I board the buses home, busy days

Ahead, but for now, hallowed, heady harmony.

Writing Reference: Symbolism of Colors

Colors are proven to have a profound effect on the human psyche and moods.

Territories use colors to represent themselves on their flags.

The significance of colors is proven by the high value that our ancestors placed on certain plants or substances that could be made into dyes, such as the Imperial Purple of Rome that was produced from a mollusk that was valued more highly than gold, or the saffron crocus that produced the sacred color of the same name.

Prior to the development of chemical dyes, the creation of colors that did not fade in the Sun or wash away was a combination of art, science, and magic, akin to an alchemical process.

The impact of the Sun shining through stained glass, painting the interiors of churches with living colors that shimmered and danced, in a medieval world where color was often a privilege of the wealthy few, can only be imagined.

The 7 colors of the rainbow—which break down into 700 shades that are visible to the naked eye—are associated with the seven planets, the days of the week, the Seven Heavens, and the seven notes of the musical scale.

Symbolic Meanings of Some Colors

BLACK

Night, the absence of light; mourning, sobriety, denial; authority; perfection and purity; maturity and wisdom.

Although it’s the opposite of white, both shades are, in fact, due to an absence of color, and technically speaking black is not a “color” at all. This doesn’t stop it having a wealth of symbolic meaning.

BLUE

Truth and the intellect; wisdom, loyalty, chastity; peace, piety, and contemplation; spirituality; eternity.

There’s something cool and detached about blue that gives rise to its reputation for spirituality and chastity. Above all, blue is the color of the sky. Like the sky, blue is infinitely spacious. It contains everything, and yet contains nothing. The color is therefore associated with ideas of eternity.

BROWN

Poverty, humility, practicality.

Primarily associated with the Earth, soil, the raw element before it is covered with greenery. The word for earth, in Latin, is humus, which carries the same root as humility. Religious ascetics wear brown as a reminder of this quality and also of their voluntary material poverty.

GRAY

Sobriety, steadiness, modesty.

Gray is the midway point between black and white, and tellingly the “gray area” is an area of indetermination, indecision, or ambiguity. To be described as gray is rather less than flattering, since gray is such a subdued and neutral color, and implies that the person blends into the background.

However, gray is also a color of balance and reasonableness and is the color used, in photography, to balance all others.

Because people’s hair turns gray with age, the word is often used to describe elderly people and is also a color of wisdom.

GREEN

New life, resurrection, hope; the sea; fertility and regeneration; recycling, environmental awareness; a lucky color; an unlucky color.

Green is an amalgam of blue and yellow, and is the color of the fourth chakra. Green is the universal symbol for “Go!” to red’s “Stop!”

MOTLEY

Wealth; a chameleon personality.

Not strictly a color as such, but a combination of many other colors. The word is generally used to describe cloth or clothing. The rainbow nature of motley means that whoever wears it has as many aspects as there are colors, a chameleon personality, and it can indicate the trickster or fool (as worn by the jester, or the Fool in the Tarot) as well as kings, emperors, and deities.

In the Bible, Joseph’s coat of many colors is the object of much envy.

ORANGE

Balance between spirit and sexuality; fertility and yet virginity; energy; the Sun; like yellow, orange is believed to be an appetite stimulant.

Orange has two aspects that we see time and time again, pivoting between the material and spiritual worlds, which is not surprising given that the color itself is a balance between red and yellow. As such, it represents the second chakra, the first being red, and the third, yellow.

PINK

Femininity, innocence, good health, love, patience.

Pink is the ultimate feminine color, being flirty, girlish, and innocent at the same time. Pale pink is used as the symbol for a baby girl, just as pale blue is used for baby boys. This feminine angle is why the color pink has been adopted as a symbol of gay pride. Pink is the color of universal, unconditional love.

PURPLE

Royalty and pomp; power, wealth, majesty.

Purple, or indigo, is the color associated with the sixth chakra. Since it was first discovered, purple has been the color of choice to denote wealth and power. Emperors, kings, and the more powerful members of the clergy—such as bishops—choose the colour as a way of defining their status. This is because the dye itself was originally available from one source and one source only; the secretions of a certain gland of an unfortunate sea snail called the Murex brandaris. Therefore, purple was extremely costly to produce and strictly the color of those who could afford it, since the dye itself was more expensive even than gold. The most popular shade of the color is called Tyrian Purple (named for the city of Tyre, where it was manufactured).

RED

Vitality and life-force; fire, the Sun, the South; blood; good luck and prosperity; power and authority; masculine energy; war and anger; passion, energy, sexuality.

One of the three primary colors, bright red pops out of whatever environment it happens to be in and grabs our attention more than any other color. Moreover, it is the first actual color that is seen by babies.

SAFFRON

Spirituality, holiness, good fortune.

Named after the saffron crocuses whose stigmas create the color, the harvesting of these delicate plant parts is a labor-intensive and time-critical matter and so the actual dye is costly to produce.

VIOLET

Knowledge and intelligence; piety, sobriety, humility, temperance; peace and spirituality.

Violet is the color associated with the seventh chakra. There are many shades of violet ranging from ethereal pale shades through to the darker mauve, considered the only color acceptable as a relief from the relentless strict mourning convention of black and gray in Victorian times. Violet is a combination of red and blue, and its association with temperance is indicated in some Tarot suits.

The humble qualities of violet as a color come from the flower. The tiny violet grows close to the ground, hidden modestly in among the grass, yet noticeable because of its striking color.

WHITE

Purity, virginity; death and rebirth, a beginning and an end; in the Far East, mourning.

White is both the absence of any color and the sum of all colors together, so in a sense it can mean everything or nothing. This combination of all colors has given white the name of the “many-colored lotus” in Buddhist teachings.

YELLOW

The Sun; power, authority; the intellect and intuition; goodness; light, life, truth, immortality; endurance; the Empire and fertility [China]; cowardice, treachery.

Yellow is one of the three primary colors and is related to the third chakra which lives in the region of the solar plexus. This is apt, since yellow, like red and orange, is one of the Sun colors. It could be argued that yellow is the most dazzling of the three, so the association makes good sense.

Because leaves turn yellow and then to black with the onset of fall, in several places, including Ancient Egypt, yellow is a color of mourning. A yellow cross was painted on doors as a sign of the plague, possibly for the same reasons, and even today yellow marks off a quarantined area.

Source ⚜ Writing Notes & References More: On Colours

last list of "beautiful" words for 2024

to try to include in your next poem/story

Asterismal - of or relating to asterisms or constellations

Astichous - in botany, not arranged in rows

Astroite - a radiated or star-shaped mineral or fossil

Bloodflower - a tropical herb (Asclepias curassavica) with orange-red flowers

Diapasm - perfume of powdered aromatic herbs sometimes made into little balls and strung together

Diapason - a burst of sound

Diarize - to keep or write in a diary

Diatomin - a yellow or yellowish brown pigment found in certain algae and diatoms

Equant - of, being, or relating to a crystal having equal or nearly equal diameters in all directions

Gradine - one of a series of low steps or seats raised one above another; a shelf at the back of an altar on which candlesticks and flowers are placed in a Christian church

Intervert - to turn to a course or use other than the proper one; misuse

Kippage - an excited or irritated state; commotion, confusion

Kithe - to make known

Notionate - fanciful, notional; headstrong, stubborn

Perimorph - a crystal of one species enclosing one of another species

Peripeteia - a sudden or unexpected reversal of circumstances or situation especially in a literary work

Quaesitum - something sought for; end, objective

Rounceval - something very large; huge

Senecio - any of a large genus (Senecio) of widely distributed composite plants that have alternate or basal leaves and flower heads usually with yellow ray flowers

Senectitude - the final stage of the normal lifespan

Tragedienne - an actress who plays tragic roles

Urceolate - shaped like an urn

Urostege - a scale on the underside of the tail of a snake

Urushiye - a Japanese color print in which the dark colors are printed with a lustrous medium commonly considered to be lacquer

Windflaw - a gust of wind; flaw

If any of these words make their way into your next poem/story, please tag me, or send me a link. I would love to read them—always.

More: Lists of Beautiful Words ⚜ Word Lists ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

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