The long taper of the fisherman
carves graceful serpents in the air,
undulates overhead, uncoils,
lays his leader down on the eddy.
The coachman’s hackle catches fine droplets,
sprays from the crisp rush,
reachers for the crest,
slow dancers, lurid with deep thrusts,
small surfers on the foam, riders on the scree.
A rainbow in the fast lane least traveled,
in the underwater silence,
flexes rudders in a rush to the mar
in the clarity of the surface. In an instant
the hook barb sets into the soft palette ridge. There!
An electron on a wire, taut signals, no slack.
A tug on the line between thumb and index, yanks.
The rainbow, slick and wet, the surface of glycerin bubbles,
shocked by sunlight,
the maddened roar of the pool,
regrets the prior impulse,
in a graceful arc, in forbidden air,
catches a glimpse below
of grateful free rainbows,
defies and reasserts its fate, re-submerges,
running out the line, but jerked back hard
with the whirring intake of reel.
In a froth of its own making, frenzied oxygenation,
the rainbow abandons its own locomotion,
to the small plummet of a fall that marks a carry in the forest beside the stream.
A steep slide to a horizontal glide, and is wrenched high in the air.
Too high, too hot.
Indigo.
Violent violets.
Brush smears on cloudless skies,
peek through the tops of the old white pines
that can still be found here.
At the apogee, there is no tension.
No tug.
And the rainbow is weightless.
Flying,
free
fall
back
to the planet.
Hits hard on the surface,
for a moment
half in,
half out.
Descent buoyant to rest.
Finally, silent and spent.
Immersed in cool waters, on the soft polished stones
at the bottom.
The run of the stream is halted:
froze.
Time:
still pulses.
Caws of large birds startle the silence,
with reedy bleats
to mock the passing.
For the moment.
At least for now.
Till then.
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
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