I once wove a tapestry, inspired by the names of small Wisconsin towns, called “Black Earth, Spring Green“. Now I write about the color of the small town where I live, as it is indeed Spring Green time right now and there is nothing so thrilling for me as driving through the country on a sunny day in the late afternoon and watching the color shift.
High contrast in late afternoon sunlight shatters a single color into brilliance and shadow. Shades of green sharply divide between sunbright green-yellow and its cool deep forest green shadow. In the American Midwest, the sweet viridian green fields of blue-green winter wheat are beginning to sprout the ears of wheat, turning pale celery toward golden at the tips. Each day now the palette will shift, as it does, also, every hour in the sunlight. At this time of day, everything assumes a bright golden cast, with the deepest of shadows etching all the details in high contrast.
Wild mustard takes over the fallow fields but as disking begins, it will fall and and the color of the field will turn abruptly to purplish grey. Other fields are shifting out of their bracken-red-brown winter coats into indeterminate but imminent green.
And some fields, already tilled and seeded, are momentarily a grey-mauve soil which will shortly begin to erupt in tiny yellow sprouts, growing day by day until the dull earth color is engulfed.
What a beautiful post – a lovely tribute to your part of the world. I’m so looking forward to experiencing this beauty in a few weeks. It’s beautiful up here in NE Indiana, as well. It seemed to take sooo long to get here!
Living in southern Illinois, I can vividly see everything you write about. How beautifully you describe it all!
Love how you write so e evocatively about colour