Colour and Light Perception Deception – By Vaughan Jones

This poem was my response to a challenge to write a poem in Quatrain form in pentameter metering, having alternating rhyming. I decided to pen a poem depicting the contrast between fully colour sighted people and those who are totally or partially colour blind. This is purely a matter of perception, I have always thought. It is strange to consider that what one person sees can be vastly different to what another person sees while looking at the same object.

I am partially colour blind and I suffer from night blindness, which brings about embarrassing circumstances. A person would say that something is a dark navy blue. No, to me it is black. And at night, the likes of “Why did you step into that hole?’ And I would respond saying, “I did not see any hole. Everything looks like level black ground or floor to me”.

Colour and Light Perception Deception

Is not color wonderful to perceive,
pure beauty in its incredible range.
Whilst for some it is only to deceive,
partially color blind, it is so strange.
 
Some easily recognize shades of blue,
whilst for others blue is clearly black.
Some see yellow clearly bright in a hue,
but others see only green in their lack.
 
Perception deception is so well used,
while bright lights and colors surround.
Our body/mind illusion so confused,
as these attractions in our sight abound.
 
In the dull, dreary darkness of the night,
carefully feeling a way through the lack,
Being night blind and all is out of sight
As all shades of grey appear to be black.