RAINBOW🌈

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As a child camping with family, I ventured
from our double tent into the chilled air
come dawn after a night-long downpour,

when Yosemite was clean & brilliant, in
morning filtered through the branches
of more pine trees than one could fathom,

to my favorite vantage, the smooth outcrop
of granite that rose from the path I walked
each day, to a cold, chattering stream.

Climbing atop and standing in the silence
on the concave expanse of stone, I beheld
overhead, the arc of a rainbow!

The myth of what I might find at one end
took over my imagination, so I
slid back down, and off I went to explore,

'till soon, there it was, below in a clearing:
the rainbow's end, surrounded by
a council of trees a quarter-mile thick!

Instinctively, I climbed down the slope,
to excitedly stake my claim,
to bathe in a spectrum of its colors.

But as I approached in breathless want,
the colors began to quickly fade
into the trees, until nothing remained.

Such was the folly of what I'd hoped for,
and to now be left with only a mem'ry.

For years I mourned, thinking, if only I'd
stayed at a distance to enjoy what I had,

yet since I've grown, with each passing year,
I've come to know the gift of that rainbow
truly was... the gold at its end.



©2016 Jade Pandora. All Rights Reserved
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