This is just a free-roaming response to a prompt “If I were a color…” from Susan Wooldridge’s Poemcrazy and the selection of a color from The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair. I just started with that sentence and the color, took five minutes, and let my words scamper where they may.
If I were a color, I would be absinthe, pale, the color of wormwood and anise, fennel and other secret botanicals. Absinthe, if you don’t know, was a popular aperatif in the nineteenth century. Everyone seemed to love it until it became an obsession, until la fée verte, the green fairy, whisked them away to a fantasy realm. Absinthe was the spirit of the bohemian, the artist, the disenfranchised, the lunatic. Then they became afraid and banned it. Except….Absinthe is not what it was perceived to be. It is just an ordinary beverage with a powerful punch. I am like absinthe. I am not what everyone perceives me to be. I am just a sweet ordinary green…that packs a powerful punch too.
ljgloyd 2022
Miss Pelican's Perch 
May 6, 2022 at 1:14 pm
I go to a place in Seattle called Sorrentos – they have serve Absinthe and it’s wonderful 😉
May 6, 2022 at 1:47 pm
That’s what I hear. It makes you wonder what all the big fuss was about 150 years ago.
May 6, 2022 at 1:52 pm
It had something to do with the Winemakers. The skinny is, they didn’t like the competition so they ran a smear campaign. It worked. You should check the history out. It’s interesting.
May 6, 2022 at 1:58 pm
Here’s a good article:
https://theuijunkie.com/the-real-reason-why-absinthe-was-banned/