Colours of Life by Sara Salman

When did the world get colour?

Did it happen overnight?

Because in all the old photographs

The sky is black and white

Why do we see

Each colour the way we do?

Why does each story have a colour

Buried at its centre like a peach pit

How can a name sound a defining lavender

And why happiness radiates a blinding yellow?

The golden exultation of a cup half full

Or the fiery red love with its magnetic pull

I feel Colour is a language – a way to give

Voice to grief – the healing, and the inevitable joy

And I think overwhelming gratitude

Is the most daunting white

Of heartfelt smiles

And soft starry nights

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Sara Salman, a student of X-S (Sincerity) finds poetry and writing a medium to reconcile the words in her head and heart. She believes if we embrace literature, it can offer us a way to empathize with one another. In its immediacy, poetry and writing is a counsellor of its own, which helps us to understand each other better and clearer.

Apart from poetry and writing, Sara also likes to raise awareness on the modern-day issues prevailing in Pakistan. She has a firm faith that raising awareness and advocating is the first step to a better and well-informed country.

In this poem, she talks about how colours have a significant hold over our lives. And how every story can be remembered in colours and emotions.

She deems gratitude to be a blinding white. Which encompasses all other emotions/colours in our lives.

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Cover Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash