Which Color? Poem by Denis Mair

Ghost expanse
You are nothing but there!
Search parties set out
and are gone.
Shadows make journeys across you;
Gloomy patches merge into one darkness
Until looking up we see
a streak of fishbelly dawn!

Above dark bushes a balustrade
For giddy socialites to lean upon;
An all-night diner where pop-veined faces
Show shockingly against the tile walls.

I want to hear many stereos in concert
Outside a dorm on a spring night:preserve me from silence.

I want to see the looks on fifty faces
Passing my bench as if in promenade:spare me the darkness.

Brahman of colors
Be-all and end-all of hues
To which each vagrant mauve and taupe return,
Toward you we send wafting
An offertory scent of linseed oil
Forgive us our splotches.