Edited by Jim McCrory, Monday 2 February 2026 at 08:37
So Much Depends on Red
I watched a drama yesterday. They did it without ceremony: two boys, a brush dipped too deeply and an old home made go-cart.
The red wasn’t careful. It was the red of warning lights and scraped knees, of things you’re not supposed to touch but do anyway.
When they rolled the paint on, it felt less like decoration than a small act of defiance: look, we’ve made this ordinary thing impossible to ignore.
It startled me how much depended on that colour.
How quickly the world narrowed to an object made brighter by human hands.
I thought about how meaning doesn’t always arrive through speeches or explanations—it often slips in sideways, through something humble that’s been altered just enough to make us stop.
And then the poem came back, as it always does, simple and unguarded, like it’s been waiting.
The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
The boys didn’t know the poem.
They didn’t need to.
The red did the work.
The seeing did the work.
For a moment, everything depended—not on history or explanation—but on a colour held against the world, asking us, gently, to pay attention.
“The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams (1923) — public domain.
So Much Depends on Red
So Much Depends on Red
I watched a drama yesterday. They did it without ceremony: two boys, a brush dipped too deeply and an old home made go-cart.
The red wasn’t careful. It was the red of warning lights and scraped knees, of things you’re not supposed to touch but do anyway.
When they rolled the paint on, it felt less like decoration than a small act of defiance: look, we’ve made this ordinary thing impossible to ignore.
It startled me how much depended on that colour.
How quickly the world narrowed to an object made brighter by human hands.
I thought about how meaning doesn’t always arrive through speeches or explanations—it often slips in sideways, through something humble that’s been altered just enough to make us stop.
And then the poem came back, as it always does, simple and unguarded, like it’s been waiting.
The Red Wheelbarrow
by William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
The boys didn’t know the poem.
They didn’t need to.
The red did the work.
The seeing did the work.
For a moment, everything depended—not on history or explanation—but on a colour held against the world, asking us, gently, to pay attention.
“The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams (1923) — public domain.
Image by Copilot