Blue is Blue

If I call stones blue it is because blue is the precise word, believe me.
~ Flaubert

I like Robert Frost’s poem, Fragmentary Blue.
He says a lot with a few words. He questions why
we over-dwell on the fragments of blue observed
in a flower or a butterfly, a gemstone, a bird,
an open eye. He connects such glimpses of blue
to the all-encompassing blue of the sky,
“in sheets the solid hue.”

As we look skyward, high above us, might the
heaven’s expanse of blue “whet” our hunger for
larger understanding, truths beyond the temporal?
Beyond fragments of blue, fragments of thought?
.
I appreciate Frost’s use of the plain word, “blue.”
It illustrates the importance of precision, use of
the right word, a single word representative of
a larger theme. It underlies the poem’s meaning.

Blue’s pretentious cousins could not have been
considered. Cerulean Fragmented or Fragments of Cobalt,
would not have worked — even for Frost.