As the Rainbows Melt

Rainbows are melting.

They slide slowly from the sky.

Yellow melds into green, into blue,

until all the various hues become one

red, the color of blood.

Listen to the funeral dirge

in the crying of the wind

as we kill the rainbows

with disharmony, hate,

apathy, and inequality.

The scales are dangerously tipped.

People once kneeled to pray,

“Lord, why not me?” Now the mantra of the masses is,

“As long as it's not me.”

Rainbows are harmony, hope,

caring, sharing, and a love

that cannot be contained, but rises

above petty insecurities of this world.

They are imminently irreplaceable.

All hearts beat and break the same.

Yet there is a worldwide preoccupation

with race, creed, color of skin;

when the important part is the soul.

You can’t judge a soul by the packaging.

We all bleed as one;

red blood, the color of death.

We all die as one;

as hearts stop beating.

Can we not live as one?

Someday the rainbow will be only a myth,

a fairy tale to put our children to sleep.

You may find an old man

who remembers the glorious view

of color arching across the sky.

Except he can’t be sure if he

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.

©2018