Eve Names the Colours

“...colour names begin to be used by individual cultures in a relatively fixed order. The origin

of this hierarchy is largely unexplained.”

- Article held in the National Library of Medicine

Black and white came first; she knew the evening

and the morning. Then more words, like smooth fish

rising from the dark. They bubbled, handsome,

slick. The man’s flushed face was red; the world

was green. And in the middle of the garden,

yellow fruit glowed in her open palm.

The snake coiled neat and smiling at her wrist.

The blue sky left its image in the pond.

The other colours came after the Fall:

the orange flaming sword — the desert’s brown.

She watched the man toil in the empty dust,

and named the child’s pink feet, the straggling flowers.

At night, she gathered up her garments, heavy

with the day. Outside the cave, the stars

made shapes: a crown, a woman giving birth,

a dragon waiting with a gaping jaw.

She crushed the snake beneath her foot, and cured

the grey pelts in the spark and smoke. The red earth

called out to be touched. She placed her palm

against the wall, and blew the world’s first shape.

Esther Lay