has no one ever told you that
your eyes aren't brown?

your gaze has borrowed from a hundred places
a colour i'd use to paint a million pictures
clay, i think,
soft clay from the hills and valleys
with the spring-kissed earth
on those postcards you send
only to the ones you love.
your eyes have every shade of colour i ever gathered
as a child from the old pebble beach,
and golden specks; i'm certain
the sun once danced inou.
the falling leaves of autumn
have swirled into the way you look at me,
teaching me new languages,
of storms, of sentiment, and of silence.
surely,
if the smell of rain was made of a colour,
your eyes would be its name.

did the fireflies learn from your piercing gaze?
i know i want to.
i know the stars slipped out last night,
with only your eyes as their excuse.
i've mastered the art of tiptoeing past
the crackle at their surface,
and into the beckoning flame.
a kind of candlelight;
searing at the edges, yet
gentle at the core.