I’ve been searching for this color’s name like a word on the tip of my tongue—as if in finding its true name, I would uncover my own. I finally found it nestled among the lines of Jesuit priest and poet Gerard Manley Hopkin’s poem The Windhover, and now I profess it wholeheartedly with the joy of discovery: my favorite color is vermilion. V e r m i l i o n. . .I say its name slowly in my mind, relishing its sound, turning it over and over like a smooth pebble in my pocket. Even typing it gives me a thrill. I’ve been trying to identify the elusive name of my favorite color for over a year now, excitedly pointing it out to Drew when I find something close to it during our nature walks. Vermilion is a red that embodies both fire and blood with a vividness that evokes awe in me every time I behold it—perhaps for good reason.

Vermilion is a dangerous color to make. True vermilion is the poisonous combination of mercury and sulfide, ground to a powder made even more fiery the finer it is ground. It is no longer made this way as painters opt for the safer cadmium red, but in medieval times through the end of the 19th century, vermilion was often reserved for royalty and sainthood because of how difficult it was to obtain and create. As soon as I learned its name, I have been using it to identify things my eyes love—like the berries robins feast upon in fall. Every morning, I watch them from my window with something that amounts to awe tinged with delight. Imagine eight or nine robins perched on bounteous branches, swallowing berries whole as the late sun rises. Oh, the joy! On one such morning, I wrote the following reflection in my journal:  

My favorite color is the blood of Christ, like

Lofty robin’s breast framed against shy morning’s sky.

She receives her daily bread, a manna

Made of vermillion and sun-sweet wine—

Each berry a song she holds between parted beak

Before swallowing heaven’s gift whole

in Holy communion, strength for today

and bright hope for tomorrow.

The color’s long association with nobility and holiness is perhaps why Hopkins gives Christ the King “vermilion” to name the sacred color of His blood. My undergraduate English professor’s lecture on this poem is one I will never forget, and I will attempt to convey the wonder of what I learned. In his poem, Hopkins uses the metaphor of a stately falcon soaring through morning skies to describe the power of Christ in the heavens—a power made more potent on earth through his willingness to give up his own life. In the final two stanzas, Hopkins describes Christ’s intentional surrender of his life with the word “Buckle,” equating it to the motion a bird makes when buckling its wings and falling through the sky to swoop upon prey—only Christ is both the falcon and the prey.

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here 

Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier! 

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion 

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear, 

Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

“The fire that breaks from thee then. . .a billion times told lovelier” is Hopkin’s way of telling the reader that the One who willingly came from Heaven to earth and submitted himself to death as “blue-bleak embers” break open and flame out in gold-vermilion in a final blaze of triumph as they fall to the ground, extinguished—is worthy of our highest worship. Christ’s sacrifice is bird and prey, fire and ember, lion and lamb, King and Servant, vermilion and gold—blood mingled with glory.

I stumbled upon vermilion when reading “The Windhover” for perhaps the tenth time and finally decided to look up this strange word. I didn’t know when I set out to find the name of my favorite color that it would be the color one of my favorite poets named worthy of Christ’s blood, a color used throughout history in strange and significant ways. Vermilion is a color derived of pain and sacrifice, poisonous to the One who bore it.

I went looking for my favorite color, and what I found waiting for me at the end of my seeking was Christ himself—the root and fountain of all my longing. And isn’t that true for each one of us?

Christ our seeking, Christ our finding, we worship you.

Amen.

Going Deeper:

• Check out the article “Pigment: Vermilion, the Red of Heaven” on The Eclectic Light Company. It’s a fascinating look at Vermilion in prominent paintings, many of which have a religious theme. 

• Spend some time gazing upon Peter Paul Ruben’s Descent from the Cross in which vermilion is used for the blood of Christ, mirrored in the vibrant cloak of one who helps him down from the cross after death. To me, Ruben’s use of vermilion suggests that our white robes of righteousness can only be found through the red blood of Christ.