• poetry

Before there was red, there was orange.

A generation of quiet that lived pale by comparison,

the 1950s were muted.

Dramatics were hidden.

Mystery was timeless.

The frenetic was only for youth.

Orange was a presence that shot straight from elastic into a future that hoped for heaven.

Into living room rugs and 70’s furniture,

an intensity took its place.

Orange was not enough.

Its colour, faded. Its ambition, muddled.

Its pallor, too tarnished to blush.

In a stratagem to overthrow what was once alive and above,

a new generation took place.

“Mom, it’s not a retirement home, it’s a village.

A community. A life of recumbent safety”