October, 5:30 am is a very black time of day in Toronto. It continues to feel pretty black when you’re being dragged around the block at 5:58 am by a terrier who seems to find brisk, pre-dawn air completely invigorating.
This morning, I thought of “What is Black?” from Mary O’Neill’s amazing Hailstones and Halibut Bones.
Here is a bit:
What is Black?
Black is the night
When there isn’t a star
And you can’t tell by looking
Where you are.
Black is a pail of paving tar.
Black is jet
And things you’d like to forget.
Black is a smokestack
Black is a cat,
A leopard, a raven,
A high silk hat.
The sound of black is
“Boom! Boom! Boom!”
Echoing in
An empty room.
Black is kind –
It covers up
The run-down street,
The broken cup…
(For the rest… go find Hailstones and Halibut Bones, or look in The 20th Century Children’s Poetry Treasury ed. Jack Prelutsky).
Shelf Elf: read, write, rave. 