The Red Wheel Barrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

So begins William Carlos Williams' famous poem and for years I passed the old wheel barrow outside Harry van Layden's house here on Hydra, it was always painted in a beautiful Greek, loulaki blue. I remember I even tried to write a blue wheel barrow poem once but of course, since I hardly understood the fine points of Williams' poem anyway it was difficult to make a parody or a poem with a stupid tag. But then today when I passed, the wheel barrow had been painted red. Beautiful. It seems like the wheel barrow is in use all the time, it's not there for show. And now that it's painted red it will be even harder for me to make a poem out of it.