An Exercise in Creative Writing
‘Black’ and ‘white’ and ‘brown’ don’t go near to describing our skin colour in all its variety. Study the range of hues that occur between knee and foot or knuckle to elbow. Imagine a section of skin as an abstract painting – how would you describe its pattern of colour and shapes? Imagine it as a landscape seen from the air – its grass-like hairs, the subcutaneous veins that resemble the injections of blue minerals into stone or the pattern of submerged streams in a desert – how would you describe this environment seen from on high?
