There was an American man named Phillips Brooks who traveled abroad to Europe, and as he traveled he wrote in his notebooks, and in one of those notebooks, as he traveled in Germany, he wrote the following sonnet. Since reading it, I have wanted to seek out what he refers to as noontide blue.
The heaven of Truth lies deep and broad and still
And while I gaze into it, lo, I see
Some human thought, instinct with human will,
Gather from out its deep serenity.
Awhile it hovers, changes, glows, and fades,
Then rolls away; and where it used to be
Naught but the heaven of Truth from which it rose
Looks down upon me deep and broad and free.
So have I seen, shaped in the noontide blue,
A floating cloud attain to gradual birth,
And then absorbed in that from which it grew
Leave only the great Sky which domes the earth.
What are men’s systems, thoughts, and high debates
But clouds which Truth creates and uncreates?
— Phillips Brooks, 1882
Words + Images 
The color of the sky above the sea when the sun is directly over on a bright, clear day? Love the sense of release and change in the poem: so Christian and Buddhist, and many other ways, too, I suppose. What do you think the blue is like?
Beautiful sonnet – even better when you read it aloud! â ď¸đ
I agree. Reading it out loud is a wonderful experience.
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