Nature rarer uses yellow Than another hue; Saves she all of that for sunsets, — Prodigal of blue, Spending scarlet like a woman, Yellow she affords Only scantly and selectly, Like a lover's words.
from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete, by Emily Dickinson.
I’m not sure I agree with Emily Dickinson about yellow! Think of all the daffodils, dandelions, marigolds, groundsel … The sunflowers seen above owe their presence in a Canterbury garden to more than a little human help: pre-Colombian American people saving the seeds, choosing the best to produce future crops; immigrants sending seed home where the process began again to find the best varieties to feed Europe and fill our gardens. The seed that grew this specimen was from a packet of bird seed.
So let’s be grateful for yellow, for daffodils and sunsets, cats’ eyes and sunflowers, and remember that they are embodied words of a lover, the Lover:
And he said: Let the earth bring forth the green herb, and such as may seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, which may have seed in itself upon the earth. And it was so done. And the earth brought forth the green herb, and such as yieldeth seed according to its kind, and the tree that beareth fruit, having seed each one according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:11-12.
Listen out for the Lover’s words this Advent! O come, O come, Emmanuel.