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The Color Challenge

Day lilies.

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Mixed Greens

All text and design © 2009, by Bernard Gieske, Juliet Wilson, Michael Helsem, Tree Riesener, and Gene Doty.

Living in Bowling Green

Bernard Gieske

Excuse me, but my favorite color isn't green
Even though I live in the city of Bowling Green.

In its history the people played such lively games.
On many sunny days their fun was bowling on the Green.

In his boyhood here there lived a man named Duncan Hines.
One day you might find his colored cakes in Irish green.

Oh yes, this city is the home of the car Corvette.
If it pleases you, you can own one painted blue green.

The school my son attended here was Bowling Green High.
His closest friend in French class was Emily Green.

About once a week I visit our Bowling Green Mall.
There you can plainly see its signs printed all in green.

With pollution and economy the way they are,
I am happy to see the city still going green.

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Green Ghazal

Juliet Wilson

The trees in the forest are all still green
but soon we'll take rest from the colour green.

Do you recycle your bottles and cans —
you know it's a test of being green?

I'm glad the ladybirds eat the greenfly
they're such little pests those aphids so green

Ten rabbits run round in the little field
that has just been named the 'best village green'

Under the trees in a pensive moment
here is a poet who's crafty and green.

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" . . . green"

Michael Helsem

how many years upon a terrace green
young Fate's smile breaks through like ferrous green

my vintage Buick wears a "no-nukes" sticker
reliance more on coal; embarass green

cold minds procure from what may be, aspiring
dreams to wage real war in garish green

spirit born to know the vast inane
in durance hoar, in wings an heiress green

Graywyvern feels how brief his stand and scurry
fame's golden nectar mixed (Why?) Paris green

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Green

Tree Riesener

Fashionable distinctions — nile green, olive, viridian — seem unnecessary, overly precise, compared
to simple idiom re-added to language, as when Lorca said, simply, green, how I want you green.

No matter, stretch and yawn, but leave your crumpled linen sheets behind; go to drops fallen
overnight on dark moist lettuce, spinach, kale, say look, the sun is magnified through the dew, green.

How quickly we purify our words, desires, no longer care for brown, sienna, taupe, ochre, clay
when during drought, instead of fashionable earth tones, we understand one truth — pursue green.

Add it up around you — shrubs, grass, leaves — the most present hue in scintillating infinite
variety, peaceful, fresh. Realize and never in your boredom say, oh, not again, it's déjà vu, green.

We send much needed argument to heaven, disagree, second-guess but we can join together
and thank God, who could have made trees orange but instead made them, merci beaucoup, green.

So many things to bid farewell. With Donne good-bye to books, Millay to rain, with Sappho
cucumbers, love and pears. At the end, looking through garden window glass, we say, adieu, green .

When with Keats I fear that green may early cease for me, my pen not glean the teeming words,
remind me, say a tree hopes, if it be cut down, the tender branch thereof will come anew, green.

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