right hand pointing

When I was no more than seven
I spilled a blue snow cone
on my church clothes, my white pants stained,
sticking to the car seat like flypaper.

When I was not quite seventeen
I saw swamp gas rise
from the graves in a Texas cemetery,
blue ghosts floating upward into Spanish moss.

No more than three years later I heard Furry Lewis
play the blues with ancient fingers on rusty strings,
his right hand strumming a rhythm like a ceiling fan
in a hot and sleepless bedroom.

When I was forty-seven
I used a Parker fountain pen
to write blue numbers on the blank check
that paid to bury my father in his navy blue suit.

Yesterday I looked at the clear sky and remembered
an argument I once read, that the sky has no color.
It said the sky can be any color it chooses --
"sky blue" is an illusion, a trick of the mind.

None of this has any business being blue.
Except one thing: There is a light in the dark center
of wherever I am: A jewel that always shines
as blue as peace.