Why are there. so many songs about rainbows
and what’s on the other side?
The curious song appeared mysteriously,
a do-loop in the brain that would not
disappear shortly after her death.
It was not “Oh what a beautiful morning,”
“Take me out to the ball game,”
“Let’s go fly a kite” or any of the songs
we used to sing every morning after chair chat.
It was not “Let me call you sweetheart,”
“A bushel and a peck” or any Doris Day tune
I cooed while helping her dress—for I loved
seeing her smile. This puzzling song played
over and over while we sailed long hours until
reaching Frankfort, the harbor we’d left so abruptly
last summer when I received the call her health
was failing.
Full circle, I told myself, humming the tune
as I jogged alongside the Betsie, a path lined with
Queen Anne’s Lace, everlasting, evening primrose—
flowers we once picked for her coffee table—
for they were not weeds in our eyes.
I see her in the bunny bounding off the trail,
the Great Blue emerging from the grasses,
the lily pads edging brown with summer’s end,
the silent presence of an eagle overhead.
I sense her delight at the ducks beneath the bridge
grooming their feathers, the mink scampering
across the rock embankment, the whooshing
of the trumpeter swans. I asked her once
to leave me a sign, to let me know she’s still
with me. And every day a lone monarch fluttered
momentarily at my side. On the sail home,
a whisper of a rainbow graced the morning sky
as I sang the lyrics to our new song.
Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection
The lovers, the dreamers, and me. *
*Rainbow Connection by Kermit the Frog from The Muppet Movie
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