Not the yellow of random daffodils or
Acacia or Scotch broom, no
Not that buttery rich deep egg-yolk 
Lucent hue; no, nothing quite so kind, 
More like stale horse urine
Rimming a feed pail, or the wrung out
Tinge of old linen abandoned on a clothesline; 
Yes, more like that but no, not quite,
Worse in fact, this indescribable pigment,
Something the senses should never define
Since this shade is tailor-made, 
What the grasses along the roadside
Wear after a nanosecond midnight spray:
Pesticide tufts fluttering in young
February by pastures where foals
Nestle, where the white of manzanitas
Shed their bowery of blossoms
Like broken rosaries, where
The synchronized vines are the cause
Of all this increasing disturbance,
For the sharpshooter is laying eggs—
Over-wintered innocent pest, pinch size 
Of a penknife, flying at will, riding
Brisk ancient winds with moves deemed 
Counterintuitive to the vintner's interest 
And thus the assault against it is an intemperate
Insistent shock and awe, no matter
That the dawn plover runs and pauses 
In the distressed foliage or the black-tail 
Briskly drowses in the matted fibers—
No matter, no problem where a gross gold
Coats everything thicker than pollen.

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