The brain is ectoderm, as skin and eyes,

A kindred tissue born of common frame;

There color veils our truths, conceals our lies,

And moral hues give virtue-vice its name.

A small white lie may seem a harmless thing,

While Stygian falsehood’s shadow darkest hell;

Yet souls still shade the light or dark they bring,

And bear base tones until the funeral knell.

For color is the psyche’s mother-tongue,

So Jung declared, by archetype made known;

And thought in primal shades is ever sung…

Complexion’s deeper than the flesh or bone.

All fruit betrays the essence of its kind—

Its inward nature written on its rind.