Robert Erlandson

Blue Hour

“Let the blue of the sky and ocean take your blue away when you feel blue” 
—Munia Khan

These words and the feelings they evoke could not have been imagined, much less written, in the time of Homer or Cicero. Ancient Greece had no word for blue. Nor did ancient Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Hindustani, or Icelandic writings. Egypt coined a word for blue, around 2500 BCE, because it was producing dyes and needed a word for the color. Even then it took thousands of years for the color to be widely accepted as “blue.” All the other meanings we associate with “blue” have emerged over the subsequent thousand plus years.

sipping whiskey
Drunken Hearted Man
set to replay

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About the Author

Robert Erlandson has published his haiku, tanka and haiga in Haigaonline, Daily Haiga, Cattails, Ribbons, and Prune Juice. He has also published AWE, a chapbook of poetry and images speaking to the incredible relationships between nature, art, and mathematics. See more on his website, https://www.circlepublications.net/.