The Revelation of Colors – a poem by Steven Peterson

The Revelation of Colors

Time was, when everything we learned was new,
Like kindergarten, when our teacher took
Primary colors—yellow, red, and blue—
From pots of paint and beckoned us to look:

Add red to blue—it’s purple, can you see?
Yellow and red make orange—a dawning sun.
Yellow and blue make green—a summer tree.
It seemed creation could be anyone’s.

Like smock-clad little gods we tried it too,
Paintbrushes dripping, waved like wild batons
At paper stuck to walls with Elmer’s Glue.
It was, for five-year-olds, our Renaissance.

Yet some of us would later learn how art
Starts with the one Creator, as we see
What’s given life when colored by three parts,
Lighted by love, shared for eternity.

 

Steven Peterson is the author of the debut collection Walking Trees and Other Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2025). His poems and reviews appear in The Christian Century, Dappled Things, First Things, Light, New Verse Review, The North American Anglican, The Windhover, and other publications. He and his wife live in Chicago.