Fortune found in good moments

Last week, after reading a somewhat distressing letter from the woman I have loved these past two and a half years, Nicole, I saw four rainbows in one day. They were stunning; the first being the fattest I ever saw. It was so thick, it colored a colossal swath of the mountains behind it in the various hues of its nature.

It arced perfectly across the Columbia River from the Washington side into the town of Hood River, on the Oregon. It insisted on being a personal omen for me and I allowed it to. Sometimes suspension of disbelief can be quite freeing and full of what good fortune may be found in the moment itself.

I could write a bunch about my experience with rainbows, how the most brilliant one I ever witnessed was a double one in Eldorado, just outside of Santa Fe, at Kim's house one afternoon. It was so vivid it appeared solid. I took several photographs of it. It was a keeper. I mention it in greater detail a couple of posts previous to this one under the title, The memories we carry with us.

So last week two on the way to work and two on the way home. It was as if the sky bent down to reassure me that everything was going to be alright. I needed that message that day as I imagined my heart floating downriver toward the steely sea, far far away.

Driving home that afternoon, I was reminded of a poem I wrote several years ago when I still lived in Santa Barbara, before I met the love of my life. Here it is in its arcsome lineage:

The Problem With Rainbows

is that you can’t look at one
and not feel hopeful.

Whatever the magic, whatever
the miracle, whatever the explainable refraction
of scientifically split light, a rainbow
still never fails to deliver its colorful message
of wonder, the awe and beauty
of how such a thing can happen.

And this on a day I am resigned to feel
only the sorrowed blue of empty skies,
the warmth of a familiar detachment
taking comfort in knowing nothing much matters
and nothing is connected to anything else
any more than a big circle of colors
arcing in the rainclouded air.

There is a small solace
in the fact the rainbow
is fragmented.

And that brings me hope.

Joseph Gallo
January 2002