Local Poet: Sarah Hunter

“Indigo Blue”

You were my indigo blue,

The space where I could lean in, put my head down, prop my feet up.

You were my cloud that I could look up at and watch changing.

First a lion, and then a dog, then a bear.

When I was little, I would lie in the grass in summer,

My backpack a pillow for my head.

Grass had a sweet smell June summers in Indiana.

And I would look up at the sky— knowing you were there somewhere.

Even if I hadn’t met you.

You would be the indigo blue of early night sky.

The background for my dramas, my movie.

That sweet smell of possibility.

That’s what you were for me when I didn’t know about love.

Looking up in the sky,

The clouds shifting from one form to another …

I thought they meant something.

They showed me what it would be like to love you.

To have you shift from a lion, to a dog, then a bear.

Now—there are no clouds in the sky when I lie on my back in the grass.

There are empty spaces with skinny clouds in a black night.

No indigo blue.

Where is it I go to lay my head down, prop my feet up

Now that you’re no longer sky for me?

Sarah Hunter is a Los Angeles playwright, poet, teacher, and co-creator of the award-winning Web Series “We’re Not Dead Yet.”