Surprise Poem for August 14, 2011

A Few Questions About Rainbows

One has to wonder:
at any given moment,
how many rainbows arc
across the wet, sunlit ethers
of our bustling planet?
Is anyone counting?
In how many places
do the sun and the mist
momentarily intermingle
in that moist coming together
that makes light split itself
into its very essence?

How many rainbows briefly grace
various remote jungle corners
and how many bridge a valley
or mount a virgin forest?
Is there a lake in Bulgaria
or a hilltop in Michigan’s U.P.
crowned with a rainbow right now
that I am not aware of?
How many go unnoticed
right over our very heads
on a Thursday afternoon
when we are driving home
from work or Wal-mart
or out walking the dog
and simply not looking up
or in the right direction?

How many rainbows
valiantly extend their short lives
so that a little boy—with his belly
peeking out from his Smurf t-shirt
and his bare feet hurriedly padding
the cool sidewalk to get past the trees
blocking his view—can shout with joy,
I’ve never seen a rainbow!
Are they still rainbows if no one
catches a breath at the sight of them?
And who is the unknowing recipient
of that faraway and unattainable pot of gold?

Lisa Vihos

A Poem for August

Three Sheets to the Wind

I find them hanging on the line.
They catch the wind and pull
everything else with them:
socks, underwear, pantyhose.

Large, like spinnakers, they float
and billow on the summer breeze
like three sighs, three graces. They are
reminders of where I have been

and where I am going. First, the swaddling
sheet of infancy, when the world
was my oyster and all things miracles.
Second, the sheet of paper, the blank

on which I wrote my life story, inch-
by-inch and hour-by-hour. I made
an airplane; flew my craft to far-flung lands
where no one knew my name. A place

I could reinvent myself with the right words.
And last, the shroud. The coverlet in which
I will spend the coming hours spread out
on this hard floor, drunk on eternity.

Lisa Vihos