Fall, that most colorful of seasons, is fast upon us, the deciduous trees unable to contain the fire which all summer long smoldered undetected under chlorophyll camouflage. Thus, it is fitting that the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) is revealing the new colors approved for racket coverings (i.e. rubber) as of today, the first of October, 2021. The spirit of the 1983 two-color rule remains in effect, revised in 1985 to specify that one side must be black and the other red. As black goes with everything, it remains mandatory on one side. While modern traditionalists are free to keep the other side as red as the flag most frequently raised in first place at the conclusion of international tournaments, the palette of ping-pong paddles now offers four more choices. "Every day I will give you a color, like a new flower in a bud vase on your desk," promised Marge Piercy in her poem, "Colors Passing Through Us." Now imagine, if you will, Ms. Piercy placing a different color of paddle in the vase on your desk each day: "Purple as tulips in May, mauve into lush velvet, purple as the stain blackberries leave on the lips, on the hands, the purple of ripe grapes sunlit and warm as flesh..." "Green as mint jelly, green as a frog on a lily pad twanging, the green of cos lettuce upright about to bolt into opulent towers, green as Grand Chartreuse in a clear glass, green as wine bottles..." "Blue as cornflowers, delphiniums, bachelors’ buttons. Blue as Roquefort, blue as Saga. Blue as still water. Blue as the eyes of a Siamese cat. Blue as shadows on new snow, as a spring azure sipping from a puddle on the blacktop." (As Piercy did not explicitly address the color pink in this poem, we humbly offer this photographic evidence of its approved use in the hand Romanian star Bernadette Szocs in lieu of a thousand words on the topic.) As you pass the turning leaves on the way to your local club (with apologies for the northern hemispheric bias), be prepared to delight in the new hues you may find reflected across the familiar 9'x5' pool of blue. For the last word on the subject, we gratefully turn once again to Marge Piercy: "...all the colors of the world pass through our bodies like strings of fire."

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