10 November 2006

Poem for Polychrome

There's a tradition of "poetry Fridays" among some children's-lit blogs, which I usually remember about Saturday morning. But today I'm in time to contribute this acrostic in honor of Polychrome, the Rainbow's Daughter, from The Road to Oz and other books by L. Frank Baum.

Rainbow daughter, dancing light
On an arc that sails the skies,
You enchant our earthbound sight,
Gladdening our misty eyes.
Brave the fog! Defy the night!
If it’s dry, put off good-byes!
Vanishing’s so...impolite.

Verse copyright (c) by J. L. Bell

6 comments:

David Lee Ingersoll said...

What a nice coincidence! I just posted my portait of Polychrome last night. Maybe all this rain is inspirational.

J. L. Bell said...

Thanks for the link!

One of the curiosities of Neill's portrayal of Polychrome is that she's almost monochrome: her gauzy gown becomes an ephemeral white instead of many delicate colors. It's nice to see other portraits of her that show her heritage from the Rainbow.

David Lee Ingersoll said...

Neill's version of the Wizard didn't seem to match the description either. Baum describes him as a small man and bald as an egg, very much the way Denslow drew him. Neill drew the Wizard as tall and with a fringe. I prefer, Neill's version, it just doesn't match the text.

Oh well.

J. L. Bell said...

Yes, my image of the Wizard is more like Neill's than like Denslow's or Baum's first description.

Sometimes Baum adopted his illustrators' visual details in later descriptions of characters, so Denslow and Neill must have had some insight!

Nancy said...

Oh no! I was on PF round-up this past Friday and I missed you! Adding you now, just in case anyone wanders back to the round-up.

Sorry!

J. L. Bell said...

Hey, I didn't even know there was a weekly roundup. It's an honor just to be included.