Greenness flows in waves and rows now, across the yards, forests, fields and meadows of late spring. In my field of vision is green in all shades imaginable, until the hues seemingly stretch the color to infinity.
Some color experts say the hues of green are, indeed, infinite. Others put a number on green hues, that number in the thousands. Whichever, considering green light’s wavelengths, the human eye may be able to distinguish 40 hues of green, say some doctors.
I like green and how it flows in early June. Flowing like verses in a poem, connected in visual rhyme, one purpose in time, leading spring into summer.
Wrote the poet James Russell Lowell:
“And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days. Whether we look, or whether we listen, we hear the murmur, or see it glisten.”
In his “Succession of Four Sweet Months,” Robert Herrick penned:
“Next enters June, and brings us more gems than those two that went before.”
Gems indeed, on days so full that darkness defers for a time to the beauty. There are gems of robin eggs and wild geraniums, blues and purples dotting the greenness. Of sulfurs and cardinals, yellows and reds dancing among the fullness of green.
The fullness is breathtaking. I stare in awe, as well I should. As William H Davies implored us to in “Leisure.”
“What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare? No time to turn to Beauty’s glance, and watch her feet, how they can dance. A poor life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.”