“He sang the brightness of mornings and green rivers,He sang of smoking water in the rose-colored daybreaks,Of colors: cinnabar, carmine, burnt sienna, blue,Of the delight of swimming in the sea under marble cliffs,Of feasting on a terrace above the tumult of a fishing port,Of tastes of wine, olive oil, almonds, mustard, salt.Of the flight of the swallow, the falcon,Of a dignified flock of pelicans above the bay,Of the scent of an armful of lilacs in summer rain,Of his having composed his words always against deathAnd of having made no rhyme in praise of nothingness.”

“It was pleasant to drive back to the hotel in the late afternoon, above a sea as mysteriously colored as the agates and cornelians of childhood, green as green milk, blue as laundry water, wine dark.”

“From this close, she could see the color of his eyes perfectly. They were a misty, shifting blue marbled with gray, like smoke rising through an early morning sky.”

“The sky above the island was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel—which is to say it was a bright, cheery blue.”

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”

“The words of the rose to the rose floated up in his mind: “No gardener has died, comma, within rosaceous memory.” He sang a little song, he drank his bottle of stout, he dashed away a tear, he made himself comfortable. So it goes in the world.”