Poetry

Elizabeth Hernandez photo

By

Penn Kemp

Complements on the Colour Wheel

I’ve been pondering the red dress symbol for

missing aboriginal women: Red Riding Hood.

So I dream my mother reclaims the green silk

dress she wore, the one that fits me since I had

it dry-cleaned. What use is it to her on the other

side? What redress is she demanding now?

The green life vine winding along generations

down the deep forest path. Sunlight glimmers

on a green dress of grass this warm winter.

Climate conferences conclude in timely fashion.

Called by the pundits an important hook on which

people can hang their demands…and act, I hope.

The verse rehearsed, reversed, reverberating as lies

assuage a fret of failure, not earth’s demise but ours.

Oblivious of camouflage, fox strolls across our lawn

as if he too wore green rather than his own fire suit.

Vermillion, the word that sounds green but is scarlet.

Penn Kemp

Penn Kemp is an activist Canadian poet, playwright and editor.  Her latest works are two plays celebrating local hero and explorer, Teresa Harris, produced in 2017 and published by Playwrights Guild of Canada. Recent books include Barbaric Cultural Practice (quattrobooks.ca/books/barbaric-cultural-practice/) and two anthologies edited, Women and Multimedia and Performing Women (http://poets.ca/feministcaucus/livingarchives/). See www.pennkemp.weebly.com.