I. Red A snarling dog hitting the end of his chain. Bullfrogs, the groan of a frozen lake splitting open. The ache of blood that can’t drain, the shard of wisdom tooth left in. Circles rubbed in carpet, earlobes in winter, the scratch of saltine cracker in a spoonful of chili, wine after you swallow, the shock you almost feel when you lick a battery. A above middle C at the base of your spine, the ghost of my heat on polyester after I leave your bed. II. Blue The moment between stubbing your toe and the pain. Broken glass, breath escaping between a flutist’s fingers. Marbles, hardboiled egg, ice packed in a horse’s hoof, a necklace just put on. Guinea pig vibrations, pottery wobbling on the wheel. Eucalyptus, Woolite, sour cream, Chap Stick, propane, what makes your warm back not turn away from my cold hands. III. Indigo White grapes, thermometers, the grit inside a clam, sucking a Cool Pop from its plastic. The ingredient you don’t taste until you leave it out. The breeze of a passing car, of wet flannel whipping on the line. Burlap, yucca leaves, the teeth on a computer chip, kneeling on glass beads. Sage, Neatsfoot oil, woad, a cracked fluorescent light bulb. Migrating geese, a spent cartridge falling on cement, aluminum foil torn from the roll, the noise I make when I think and the silence you give when I speak. IV. Orange The pressure that will almost straighten a paperclip but never return it to its shape. Carwashes, gravy in hospital corridors, a microwave the day after burnt popcorn. A flicked lighter, a dog scratching a screen door, one scissor blade against the other. The difference between the flesh of a jalapeno and the seeds. The heat from computers and Christmas tree lights. The part of a Band-Aid that stays behind. Why I always come before you do. V. Green Aloe on a burn, oatmeal on chicken pox, creases of skin on knuckles, quills on a sleeping hedgehog. Wind chimes, dripping faucets, Slinkies, a goldfish leaping from its bowl. Cool as a wooden conference table, a laminated library book. Alfalfa pellets, cedar chips, concrete, film canisters. Where you go when you hear or smell something I can’t.

“Lie with your head in the rain-gorged meadow, and bury your face in the reek of the earth. There, there is peace and sympathy and quietness. But lie on the glacid ocean; though the sky is like a turquoise and the water like another – yet there is no peace. Only a frantic silence, and a feeling of awestruck fear of the portentous and inscrutable element.” – Mervyn Peake, ‘Mr Slaughterboard’ from Peake’s Progress: Selected Writings and Drawings (Penguin Books; 2000).

“Hearing a crow with no mouth Cry in the deep Darkness of the night, I feel a longing for My father before he was born.”  – Ikkyu, Crow With No Mouth

There is no one metaphysical pool of universal human thought. Speakers of different languages see the Cosmos differently, evaluate it differently, sometimes not by much, sometimes widely. Thinking is relative to the language learned. There are no primitive languages. Research is needed to discover...