All Nonfiction
- Bullying
- Books
- Academic
- Author Interviews
- Celebrity interviews
- College Articles
- College Essays
- Educator of the Year
- Heroes
- Interviews
- Memoir
- Personal Experience
- Sports
- Travel & Culture
All Opinions
- Bullying
- Current Events / Politics
- Discrimination
- Drugs / Alcohol / Smoking
- Entertainment / Celebrities
- Environment
- Love / Relationships
- Movies / Music / TV
- Pop Culture / Trends
- School / College
- Social Issues / Civics
- Spirituality / Religion
- Sports / Hobbies
All Hot Topics
- Bullying
- Community Service
- Environment
- Health
- Letters to the Editor
- Pride & Prejudice
- What Matters
- Back
Summer Guide
- Program Links
- Program Reviews
- Back
College Guide
- College Links
- College Reviews
- College Essays
- College Articles
- Back
Purple Sestina
I have always loved the color purple.
Purple is like a lever,
Shifting between two meanings. It’s like fire and ice,
Richness and scarcity,
Bread that is pumpernickel and rye.
It is a strange color, ignorant and diligent.
I used to sit on the floor, coloring diligently.
The crayon in my hand was purple.
I chewed a cracker of rye,
The purple crayon working like a lever.
I continued this way until there was a scarcity
Of paper not frozen by purple ice.
There continued to be ice,
Until I left for college, where I diligently
Marked in gray pencil. Now there was a new scarcity,
A scarcity of purple.
I had broken my lever;
The lever of pumpernickel and rye.
I no longer ate crackers of rye,
Colored paper with ice,
Or used my favorite lever,
The one of ignorance and diligence,
My color, purple:
The color of richness and scarcity.
I continued to have this scarcity.
I went years without rye,
Without my happy and lonely purple,
Without its ice,
Without its diligence,
Without its lever.
But I did eventually find purple’s lever-
When I found a new family. It wasn’t a scarcity
Of old love, but a richness of new diligence.
I set a loaf of rye
On the table for my child with a glass of ice.
She is wearing purple.
I give her a purple crayon from the glass and a slice of rye.
She draws ice on paper, the crayon in her hand a lever.
Like it once did to me, diligence moved her lever without scarcity.
Similar Articles
JOIN THE DISCUSSION
This article has 0 comments.