The Blue Terrance

“The blues” is a common expression for a state of sadness or lassitude. A cool color on the spectrum, blue is associated with chills, winter, and a lack of oxygen. Conversely, blue is also associated with the life-giving and sunny sky, the warm sea, as well as noble lineage (blue blood). In Hayes’s poem, the color blue symbolizes romance and encompasses the red of love and passion. The speaker recalls a garter belt flung into the “bluest part of the night” (Line 17), which means the darkest, most romantic, and loneliest period of the evening. If the garter belt is being taken off and thrown away, the moment likely involves passion, yet is also associated with sadness. Thus, the word “bluest” (Line 17) occurs in all its myriad associations.

The speaker also describes blues music, which includes jazz, funk, and associated genres, as composed of “bloodshot octaves” (Line 23). While the blues evoke the coolness of the color, bloodshot conjures redness. Blues music, therefore, expresses many emotions, in the same way that having the blues can mean various things to different people.

The speaker loves staring into the sky—which is also blue, though this is not made explicit—because the sky regrets nothing but itself. Here, the blue sky symbolizes infinity and the boundless human self. The speaker understands the sky because he too regrets his own self and actions. He projects his state of melancholy self-awareness upon the sky. As the poem concludes, the poet states he is lonesome and blue, once again knitting the word “blue” to its symbolic meaning of sadness. But since the poet’s sadness is also something he loves, the state of the blues is not forced or bleak. It is a state of acknowledgement of the speaker’s peculiar nature, the perversity of all human nature, the nature of the world, and the circumstances of history.