By Samuel Byrd
Poetry winner, 2022 Mehta Awards
Down to the cellular properties of summer,
light is absorbed and fuels our mother Earth
and what’s left over is what we call color.
Take the grasshopper, the feeble, small jumper
whose legs, filled with spark, never reach dearth
down to the cellular properties of summer.
The flowers in fields bloom as a wonder
are relics of leaves who evolved to give birth
and what’s left over is what we call color.
In the flowering fields lurks the serpent under
hunting, corners a mouse and gains girth
down to the cellular properties of summer.
A man tills the field, hoping to discover
if it’s working in life that gives him his worth
and what’s left over is what we call color.
As we search deeper in nature to uncover,
we may define exactly what we unearth
down to the cellular properties of summer
and what’s left over is what we’ll call color.
Samuel Byrd is a medical student at UAMS.