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The Purple Crayon
by Andrew Knechel
While volunteering
in a kindergarten class,
I watched a young boy
trade a purple crayon
for an orange one.
The dawn of capitalism,
of having one thing
and wanting another.
This is how people
must have looked
at the sky and thought
of airplanes, and
how trees could have
looked at traffic lights
and decided their leaves
should be green. That
child, alone, knew
the night sky could
be more than glitter
splashed on black
construction paper and
a sun could be
more than yellow.
Even in a world
where value is measured
in purple crayons,
that child recognized
that a sunset with
shades of orange
was worth an entire
sky of purple hues.
About the Author
Andrew is currently a junior student studying Economics, Mathematics, and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California.
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