Glass Half Full

Autumn! Michigan in autumn is a watercolor palette of crimson, orange, yellow, copper, green gold. I even like the gray down comforter of the sky. When it slides off its sky bed, a sheet of singular blue. Michigan October blue. October is a month of thinking in color. Stand under a maple tree and count the tubes of paint for the leaves. Alizarin Crimson, Scarlet Lake. Quinacridone Coral, Rose of Ultramarine. I can whisper colors to myself. For my brother, at the dinner table, saying no a hundred times: rose of ultramarine. It has sediment and an ongoing exchange of blue and pink: makes great shadows. I can close my eyes and see a tree shaped like a red wine glass, while my father wonders what this bottle of soy sauce is for, and should he put it on his salad? Add to my cheap joe's wishlist in my head as my lovely neighbor friend, wheelchair-bound, is driven to New York to live with her brother. Opera pink for her: good light fastness but may fade over time. And for me, I wonder how it is that oak leaves seem to land on tiptoe, and perhaps burnt sienna mixed with aureolin yellow for the strong spine lifted to the October sky. Or brown madder?