Fera Fox's "Colors" walks through the colour spectrum one flower at a time, giving each shade a handful of comparisons. Red is health, flame and blood; blue is ocean, stream and open sky; pink is children and ribboned presents. Most of these images are warm and familiar, so the poem feels like a bright, playful list at first.
The speaker seems to love this variety. Black and white sit side by side as opposites, and the rainbow stanza welcomes everything, even the pale and grey ones. The line "Every colour has meaning" sounds like the poem's central belief.
Then the last two lines turn. Death arrives and "empties the room," and the colourful garden suddenly feels fragile. The mood shifts from cheerful and admiring to quietly sombre. The poem suggests that colour, and life with it, matters because it doesn't last.