#17—color poem
CHARACTERS
RED
ORANGE
YELLOW
GREEN
BLUE
PURPLE
Each wears a costume in its color.
WHITE LIGHT Wears a voluminous translucent white robe, big enough to hold the others.
SETTING: Inside a rainbow. (What the heck? The purpose of writing these little bits is to open up the imagination.)
GREEN
It’s mostly mine, you know. All of that. Grass, trees. Mostly mine.
BLUE
You’re kidding, right? It’s mine all the way. All that water and those clouds.
GREEN
Clouds are white.
YELLOW
No they aren’t. They’re yellow a lot of the time, and blue.
ORANGE
And orange. At sunset anyhow, and some sunrises.
RED
Yeah, but. You guys might be common, but it’s being uncommon that’s cool. I mean, how often do I appear? Cardinals, a few red flowers, some of the stuff the people make. Special. I’m not common, I’m special. The one per cent.
PURPLE
However. I am, and have always been, royal. The majesty of my mountains, yes? The expense of the dye stuffs to color the garments of kinds and queens. Everybody knows that my title is “Royal.”
GREEN
Well, I don’t care what you say. It’s mostly mine. Besides, if any of you gets mixed up with white, you turn into an icky pastel. Pink, peach. . . .
YELLOW
Ahem.
GREEN
Okay, okay. Generalization. But Purple is lavender, which is hardly royal.
PURPLE
Of course it isn’t. But it isn’t me.
RED
Any more than pink is me. I’m RED, right? Fire engines and sports cars and mittens and. .
GREEN
And fires, right?
RED
Hey, that’s mosly orange and yellow.
ORANGE
And fires are not our fault. Come on.
BLUE
(Sings) “I’d rather be blue/ Thinking of you,/ I’d rather be blue/ Than be happy/ As somebody/ Else.”
WHITE LIGHT
(Enters with a flourish.)
Okay, everybody in! Come on, come on! Rain’s over, party’s over. In you go, in you go.
(The colors quickly scurry under White’s robes, which are closed. The curtain falls as White stands there, motionless, the others visible through the cloth.)
GladErrand 
How fun!