Gray threads run up and down the stripes of the flag like an tin-rimmed pair of glasses left to rust inside an abandoned can of Le Seur peas being prayed and hushed with last rites as a silent vigil of crab grass lays years of oxidation to rest. So is hope discolored by blindness. Unveil our eyelids and let us see the technicolor radiance showering from every pore. Envision the baobab: dipping into the soil reaching upward towas clarity onward toward the garrolous baboon colony whose outstretched palms offer the borne fruit of human kindness. sheltering the meek rodent shading the Masai hunter who not uniquely as everyone is becoming a raisin in the blistering sun. This prowess long forgottten pours like mercury rising where Mom's spiced apple pie sits on the windowsill being eaten away by hungering aromas of candy cigarettes and old books from algebra two nestled in some corridor disclosed but admired.