Summer Splash at Union Center

Black-Eyes On Parade

Hot diggety!  The Black-Eyed Boys are in town!

Don’t get me wrong.  Green is good.  Denizens of Greater Union Center know this well.  Green means growth.  Green means nourishment.  Green means the future of this special place is assured, at least as much as it is in ones own power to secure ones own future.  Green means photosynthesis is happening.  That’s the miraculous wizardry by which plants receive sunlight (lot’s of that zinging around these hot, summer days) and carbon dioxide, and produce energy for growth, energy for life.  Everyone around here knows that.  Everyone around here appreciates that. 

The Intense Greeness of Being

The trouble, many are ashamed to admit, is that green is also, well, green.  Gone are the showy lavenders and fuschias, the oranges and reds, the deep purples and shallow pinks.  Green isn’t showy or flashy or fun.  It’s workaday.  Union Centerites must hang up their spring and early summer evening gowns and party clothes, and put on their endlessly green work clothes, the uniforms that insure their future survival.  It’s funny, all the different words they use around here for green, that lovely, life-generating color.  Here are a few of them: green, verdure, verdant, freshet, pampacil, blue-verde, grellow, schoengruen, springerly, budist, emeraldite, malachite, stalkish, leavellow, grayeen, greely, sapster, cyanic, beryl, and one of my favorites, greeverder.  Each refers to different plants at different seasons, but all refer to variations of that great plant workhorse, green.

Golden droplets in a verdant ocean

Not that green needs defending, but when there’s so much of it, like now, you get a little weary, especially in a place where, as we saw when we visited back in the spring, the forceful colors, like energetically defended opinions and viewpoints, can run riot.  This sense of verdeweariness (another of their green words) can get the better of a lot of folks around here during the height of summer.  That’s where the Black-eyed Boys come to the rescue.  Funny, they don’t arrive with a lot of hoopla or fanfare, no circus parade for this gang.  No sir, they infiltrate, these boys do.  Stealth is their game.  Like black suited stage hands changing the set, these guests take their places silently, steadily, inexorably, putting themselves into positions until, at the urging of the afternoon sun, and with a silently mouthed, one, two, three, they put on their golden crowns.  No individual Black-eye is that memorable, but all of them together become a gleaming treasure chest in our midst.  Long-time residents let out a collective gasp at the sight, stunned, like they were the year before, and the year before that, at their brilliance.

Golden summer relief

I suppose it’s nice, maybe even important, to keep a bright, golden hope nearby while you’re doing the heavy lifting.  That’s what the Black-eyed Boys do for this neighborhood: they bring hope and also a little joy.  Workers, like all the green ladies and gents crowding this place’s streets and byways, need to be reminded sometimes that the basic work, the unsung, the less showy, the common, is not only vital, but will lead, once again, to the bright and exciting.  Want to know what I think?  I love the colors, true, but I also love the greens.  Not only does that color mean breath and life for me, I experience a peace and satisfaction simply looking at the great, verdant show.

About literarylee

I sling words for a living. Always have, always will. Some have been interesting and fun; most not. These days, I write the fun words early in the morning before the adults are up and make me eat my Cream of Wheat.
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