Where the Rainbow Ends

We begin this journey of life

Down a road we do not yet know.

We see the blossoms of the moment,

Costumed in dancing colors

That entices us like the bees,

To their perfumed petal traps

And we lust to gain their beauty,

 To glisten like the rose after a rain.

We watch the sun rise upon the distance city,

Turning the towers of glass to gold,

Shimmering like a river of riches

And our eyes serve us our breakfast of wants

Sprinkled with the sweet sugar of excess.

We glutton for the fat of the land.

Our stressed heart beats faster

As the grasp of our hands

Fills our veins with the empty

Calories of success.

We ignore the storms of warning

That dare darken our skies and the path

To our ever bigger car and grander house.

We fill our rooms with non-necessities

To gorge our obese egos

And we ignore the dust specks of reality

That swirl about the air to settle

Lightly upon our treasures

As if in echo of some ancient tome.

Not Home Sweet Home,

But ashes to ashes and

Dust to dust.

We do not see the light for the shimmer.

Our eyes are always to the rainbow,

An illusion of sun and water,

A trick of diffusion

And a lure to delusion.

We cannot own the colors,

But can we the Pot of Gold at its end?

But where the rainbow ends

Lies the mire of despair and truth.

When we reach the distance touchdown point

The rainbow fades away

With all we ever gathered

And we are left naked before the eyes of God.

June 2012

Photograph by Ronald W. Tipton, December 21, 2012, used by permission.