Thirteen Ways to Look at a Yellow Bead

So our latest assignment in poetry writing was to model a piece after Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways to Look at a Blackbird." We were prompted to steer clear of objects that had any sentimental value or could be taken as symbolic for a larger idea. As I sat in my favorite study room on the 3rd floor of my building, (it overlooks the intersection of Liberty and King with such brilliance) I struggled to find an object in my sight that lacked sentimental value or that I didn't treasure for some odd reason. I honestly sat there pondering objects for atleast 15 minutes and it was growing closer to 10pm than I appreciated. So, I opted to get strange. I prayed. Literally asked God to help me pick an object to stare at and reflect on for the next 1 to 2 hours. And though it may not show up in my writing, there was so much purpose in his choice for me. A yellow bead. A tiny, microscopic, yellow bead.

Somewhere in all of our years of being taught how to grow up, we were forced to lose sight of our child-like ability to marvel at the small stuff. Look intently at things the world deems insignificant and wring out every drop of beauty, or disturbance, we can. To form an unexplainable reaction to something we've seen as pointless to react to, and try to give it a voice.

"I will put in the desert
the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive.
I will set the junipers in the wasteland,
the fir and the cypress together,
so that people may see and know,
may consider and understand,
that the hand of the Lord has done this,
the Holy One of Israel has created it."
                                -Isaiah 41:19-20

So here's my attempt at being ridiculously descriptive of a meaningless object, and trying not to judge the outcome for beauty.

Thirteen Ways to Look at a Yellow Bead

I

Among a crowded sea of

burnt shag carpet and adolescence,

drowns a single yellow bead.

II

I squint with one eye

And land in a world in which there are many eyes

And many yellow beads.

III

The bead is yellow and it turns

around a fishing line;

a tiny piece of a larger whole.

IV

I hover over a mustard mass

The yellow bead and its’ others

Making one big blob of yellowness

And I stare

V

The green jumps at my eye

And I begin to wonder in my distraction

If yellow was the right choice

Or not

But it’s too late now

VI

The tiny boy with his bubble belly,

Black covered gray with desert dust,

hands me some yellow beads

for they  are nearly falling off his celery-stick wrist.

VII

The chalk dust sticks to the yellow bead

As it scrapes against the border of my board art

And though I am clumsily foreign, they remain intrigued.

VIII

Your wristband beams gold

And you scowl at the yellowness

of the bead you can’t understand the beauty of.

Don’t you know there’s life beyond the borders of

your gated drive?

IX

I know proper words and tricks of tongue

And I could make a name for myself.

I know the pain of parasites but I

know too that the yellow bead is involved

 in what I know.

X

The old man strolls his Sunday route

And stops to put a finger on what’s out of place

in the crest of cobble stone.

He tucks the yellow bead in his trouser pocket

and moves on.

XI

At the sight of the yellow bead

the wide eyed child rejoices

the perfect final touch just before the knot of pretty.

XII

With just one tug, the line is broken

and a stream of flowing ROY G BIV

bounces rhythmically on the hardwood.

Red bead, green bead, black bead

I cannot find my yellow bead.

XIII

The flyer scrapes a power line post

as the townsmen pass by glance-less.

My watch is coated with charcoal,

so I lift my chin to the sky to see

That the sun is standing still,

like a yellow bead.