Coloring Book

Each picture is heartbreakingly banal,
a kitten and a ball of yarn,
a dog and bone.
The paper is cheap, easily torn.
A coloring book's authority is derived
from its heavy black lines
as unalterable as the Ten Commandments
within which minor decisions are possible:
the dog black and white,
the kitten gray.
Under the picture we find a few words,
a caption, perhaps a narrative,
a psalm or sermon.
But nowhere do we discover
a blank page where we might justify
the careless way we scribbled
when we were tired and sad
and could bear no more.