What color is March?

Some time this month, this year probably in the second half, we will see a reduction in winter’s white and return of colors to the landscape. Not as spring wildflowers, those come later in the season. The first colors often arrive in the stems, branches and twigs of bushes and seedlings, or in the swelling of leaf buds. They bring a welcome respite from a monotonously monochromatic view dominated by white, the combination of all colors in the visible spectrum.

as color returns in March

Photo by J. Harrington

As the snow melts and the ground unfreezes, sap begins to flow in plants, think maple sugaring. Color begins to return as reds and yellows [see picture above]. Soon, green will become dominant in late spring and summer, just as white was during winter. For now, we get to enjoy a prelude to autumn’s beautiful leaf colors, but lower in the trees. Open water, blue skies and bright sunshine help heighten the beauty of early spring. Replacing snow with more than mud is an aesthetic treat that comes for a brief period each year in country that enjoys more than one season.

Come April and May, our eyes are often cast down to discover spring ephemerals. In March, once we no long have to watch for icy patches underfoot, we can look around and observe life, and color, returning. Soon, very soon, but not quite yet.

Colors passing through us

By Marge Piercy

Purple as tulips in May, mauve

into lush velvet, purple

as the stain blackberries leave

on the lips, on the hands,

the purple of ripe grapes

sunlit and warm as flesh.

Every day I will give you a color,

like a new flower in a bud vase

on your desk. Every day

I will paint you, as women

color each other with henna

on hands and on feet.

Red as henna, as cinnamon,

as coals after the fire is banked,

the cardinal in the feeder,

the roses tumbling on the arbor

their weight bending the wood

the red of the syrup I make from petals.

Orange as the perfumed fruit

hanging their globes on the glossy tree,

orange as pumpkins in the field,

orange as butterflyweed and the monarchs

who come to eat it, orange as my

cat running lithe through the high grass.

Yellow as a goat’s wise and wicked eyes,

yellow as a hill of daffodils,

yellow as dandelions by the highway,

yellow as butter and egg yolks,

yellow as a school bus stopping you,

yellow as a slicker in a downpour.

Here is my bouquet, here is a sing

song of all the things you make

me think of, here is oblique

praise for the height and depth

of you and the width too.

Here is my box of new crayons at your feet.

Green as mint jelly, green

as a frog on a lily pad twanging,

the green of cos lettuce upright

about to bolt into opulent towers,

green as Grand Chartreuse in a clear

glass, green as wine bottles.

Blue as cornflowers, delphiniums,

bachelors’ buttons. Blue as Roquefort,

blue as Saga. Blue as still water.

Blue as the eyes of a Siamese cat.

Blue as shadows on new snow, as a spring

azure sipping from a puddle on the blacktop.

Cobalt as the midnight sky

when day has gone without a trace

and we lie in each other’s arms

eyes shut and fingers open

and all the colors of the world

pass through our bodies like strings of fire.

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