By Jonathan Chan
WHAT COLOUR IS THE SUN?
what colour is the sun?
a barren eye can make
no claim, perhaps a vicarious
orange or yellow, so flamed
at the perch of a day’s
beginning or end. then it is
a pink, sandwiched between
blue evening and inky
dusk. we know the sun only
by its making a colour more
a colour: leaves gleaming a
greater green, primroses a
weaker shade of pale, spots
of cadmium in the bushes, and the glistening
of receding snow. rays of light
shoot out as a twinkle. tracing
back the beams to a searing
hot white, one sees of the sun
the grace of its radiance, known
only by what
it reveals.
TYING A TIE
he tightens the tie, taut
around the neck, ready
for the day’s trickle,
damp patches at
the collar, folds
of fabric, tie chosen to
match shirt, belt, glasses,
shoes, some juvenile
compulsion, making sure
its tip falls right over
the buckle. he thumbs
through his father’s
drawer of ties, so many
thin and silky, comically
gaudy, strips of yellow
and baby blue, good
for some pop during
another sullen
meeting. tying a tie
for a dream of
decorum: what was
victorian idyll, what
was comfortably
industrial, what was
a tourniquet
for a wound, what
was a small, defiant
knot for a mercenary.
he wraps a full
windsor around his
neck, unready, unsteady
for the humid, humid
days.
Jonathan Chan is a writer and editor of poems and essays. He is the author of the poetry collection, going home (Landmark, 2022). His writing can be found at jonbcy.wordpress.com.
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