Jose Padua: On the Persistence of Color as a Way of Seeing the World

Less than fifty years ago it would have been illegal
for me to marry the woman I’m married to
in the state where I now live.
I didn’t know this until
I was an adult,
until I was old enough to start a family,
but young enough to understand
like a child remembering last winter’s stinging cold
during the slow burn of summer
that it was not
all that long ago.
Anyone who questions
the stubbornness
of my memory knows nothing
about the force of the wind
lifting dead leaves
in the last days of autumn,
nor understands the slow passage
of time when you’re standing
on the edge of town
in the late evening light
seeing the world
in vivid, living color.

—

Copyright 2016 Jose Padua

The photograph of Jose Padua and Heather Davis was taken in 1996.