Color Blind (By Yi Sha)

by Yi Sha (translated by Denis Mair) The rainbow you tell me about: Where is the beauty in it? And to me that flag I see Looks like a diaper. I make myself finish the chess game This lifetime, but the rook I lost to you Was a giveaway. What now? You say I'm a victim of strong colors; I know only shades of bright and dark. I die beneath stoplights of the city, I die unresigned and staring At an unsolved knot of truth and lies. As fate would have it, In my final glimpse, it is given to me To see my grandfather- -a color blind farmer All his life harvesting Wheat of livid red.