By JanetheWriter
For as long as I can remember I've been fascinated by colors and the words that bring them to life.  Even today, among my most treasured possessions in a storage box high on a closet shelf is my childhood box of 64 Crayola crayons (circa 1967).  Included in that well worn green and yellow cardboard holder with the flip top and the built-in sharpener are equally well worn sticks of colored wax, each with a name to go with it--"magenta" (my personal favorite), "cornflower," "yellow green" and "green yellow," as well as the most un-PC and now-retired "flesh" and "Indian red." Back then who knew from "wild blue yonder," "outrageous orange" or "razzle dazzle rose?"

Not surprisingly, the children's book Hailstones and Halibut Bones: Adventures in Color, the literary equivalent of that box of Crayolas was my favorite in that same era.  Like the crayons, the book--with its worn binding and weathered pages, one of which is affixed with an upside-down bookplate on which I'd neatly printed my name--remains among my most treasured possessions.  On each two-page spread, author Mary O'Neill and artist Leonard Weisgard query readers about a particular color before providing a poetic and wonderfully illustrated answer that, even in a young child, evoked deep emotion.  On page 15 we read: "What is Gold?  Gold is a metal/Gold is a ring/Gold is a most beautiful thing./Gold is the sunshine/Light and thin/Warm as a muffin/On your skin..."  First published in 1961, the words and pictures represent a simpler time:  "What is Brown? Brown is the color of a country road/Back of a turtle/Back of a toad./Brown is cinnamon/And morning toast/And the good smell of The Sunday roast.  What is Purple What is Orange?  What is Red?  What is White?  And so on...

Last week, the Jewish equivalent of Hailstones and Halibut Bones crossed my desk:

What color is the Sh'ma?

Is it purple, the color of God's majesty?
Is it red as Akiva's martyred blood?
What color is the Sh'ma?
Is it orange, for faith that burns eternal?
Is it yellow, the light to which we rise in the morning?
Is it blue, the night sky under which we lie down, the color of tzitzit?
Or is it all of these together,
the spectrum shot through a prism,
all colors fused into a single beam?
"Look, O Israel!"--one bright white ray points back to the Source.
                                                                     Author unknown

Indeed, my reaction to this poem (already a treasured possession upon my heart) is best summed up by Mary O'Neill in the final stanza of Hailstones and Halibut Bones:

The Colors live
Between black and white
In a land that we
Know best by sight.
But knowing best
Isn't everything,
For colors dance
And colors sing,
And colors laugh
And colors cry--
Turn off the light
And colors die,
And they make you feel
Every feeling there is
From the grumpiest grump
To the fizziest fizz.
And you and you and I
Know well
Each has a taste
And each has a smell
And each has a wonderful
Story to tell....

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