When blue is stripped away there’s only white
as pure as paper free from petty words.
The morning’s dark and suddenly it’s trite
to think of golden beams and singing birds.
When blue is stripped away its edges burn
along the faults of flesh some lover traced.
And when it’s gone, the blue will not return;
and when it’s stripped it cannot be replaced.
It’s hard to watch it go and not to cry
at how it renders passion obsolete.
It takes a will to live to watch it die
a death so pure, so violent, so complete.
There’s not a lot that’s left to do or say
when poetry has stripped the blue away.