Melting Rainbows

The rainbows are melting,

sliding slowly from the sky.

Yellows meld into greens, blues,

until all the various hues become one:

the color red, color of blood.

Listen, you can hear a funeral dirge

in the crying of the wind.

For rainbows are dying;

being killed by disharmony,

hate, apathy, and inequality.

Rainbows are made of harmony, hope,

caring, sharing, and the kind of love

that cannot be contained, but rises

above petty insecurities of this world.

They are imminently irreplaceable.

There is no balance in indifference.

The scales are dangerously tipped.

Long ago when faced with suffering,

people fell to their knees and prayed,

“Lord, how can I help?” Now the mantra of the masses is,

“As long as it's not me.”

People are suffering every day,

for simple things they pray,

a crust of bread, grain of rice.

Yet still they cry, still they die.

Families live in newspaper covered boxes.

Wealthy men nearby, in response to their knocks

begging for leftovers, for bigger boxes,

use their influence and affluence

to have riff-raff removed from the streets.

Little children are being abused and mistreated.

They come into this world already defeated

by adults who are excused for being

immature and unable, emotionally unstable.

There is no harmony to be found in hate.

Racism. Genocide. Religious persecution.

Murder is an institution.

It’s so easy to squeeze the trigger

with a finger trembling in rage,

yet impossible to turn back time

and plug the hole your bullet made.

All people of all nations have hearts

that bleed the same,

each time they dig a new grave.

Why this worldwide preoccupation

with race, creed, color of skin?

The important part is the soul.

You can’t judge a soul by the packaging;

its essence comes from within.

We all bleed the same;

color red, color of death.

We all die the same;

our lungs stop breathing,

our hearts stop beating.

Why can we not live as one

before all the rainbows die

and melt slowly from our skies?

Someday the rainbow will be only a myth,

a fairy tale we put our children to sleep with.

You may find an old man

who remembers the glorious view;

except he’s not really sure if he

actually saw a rainbow with his own eyes,

or if it is but an illusion,

a tantalizing vision planted in his mind

by stories he heard as a child.