‘A Pink Cinquain’ by Carol Smallwood

Pink has become a favored cultural color, more subtle, less primitive than red:
black mixed with pink is considered seductive, innocent when used with white
and acquired its own name just in the late 17th century it’s commonly read.
In the 1940s, blue for boys, pink for girls became the custom, an accepted rite;
Mamie Eisenhower’s 1953 inaugural pink gown was a major fashion highlight

and Jacqueline Kennedy helped to make it associated with high-fashion spread
although the famous portrait, “Pinkie” symbolized youth in simple daylight.
There are amazing hues of pink in rose, dahlia, hyacinth, and others flower beds
varying from light to deepest pink attracting insects—pollination widespread.
Names for pink—cotton candy, cherry blossom pink, and fuchsia give delight;

tickled pink, seeing pink elephants, in the pink, are sayings that have spread.
Breast Cancer Awareness uses pink ribbons to stand out in the public limelight
with distinction to combat a wide health problem. In “Young Goodman Brown,”
Faith wears a pink hair ribbon to symbolize innocence; in Little Women, bound
ribbons appear on Amy’s twins. All told—pink packs a lot of cultural insight.

Carol Smallwood’s over four dozen books include Women on Poetry: Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching, on Poets & Writers Magazine list of Best Books for Writers. Water, Earth, Air, Fire, and Picket Fences is a 2014 collection from Lamar University Press; Divining the Prime Meridian, is forthcoming from WordTech Editions. She won the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award of Marquis Who’s Who. She has appeared in such journals as: Drunken Boat; The Writer’s Chronicle; The Main Street Rag; Jelly Bucket; English Journal.Carol has founded, supports humane societies.