That flushes this wild fruit?

The Shroud of Color

(For Llewellyn Ransom)

“LORD, being dark,” I said, “I cannot bear

The further touch of earth, the scented air;

Lord, being dark, forewilled to that despair

My color shrouds me in, I am as dirt

Beneath my brother’s heel; there is a hurt

In all the simple joys which to a child

Are sweet; they are contaminate, defiled