Shades of Grey

On the other side, beyond the frontier, the slippery constellation of outposts--checkpoints along that ragged edge of the world--the others live, eating strange food, speaking unusual words, praying to there gods with names so old that they are echoed in the words for the sky, the mountain, the river, the ocean.  Their music aches out of them, dripping off the tips of their fingers like honey, golden threads vibrating (nervously) in the trenches of the harp. 

Then, their voices...

Melancholy made its way into their throats, a syrup that coated everything.  Like the rain.  Everything.  Black rock punctuating fields of brilliant green.  The clouds are shades of grey--gun metal, tornado season, grandma's hair-do--steel wool in the frothing mouth of a miniature schnauzer.  The clouds are shades of grey, like everything.  The clouds accumulate on mountain ranges, bodies of water, wherever the ocean goes and comes.  The clouds are shades rising from open graves.  My new shades are mirrors, chromium grey, that deflect back the world.  In color, not black and white.