I’ve just told my audience at the book reading that it is not the “burning bush or the rainbow” that mysteriously write the words onto the page—though either might be the holy inspiration that gets our fingers moving across keyboard or paper.
But, rather, it is the steadfast showing up—to our lives, our work, our relationships, our stories—that moves us through our projects. Ultimately, we persist in writing and keep the faith. The first resembles effort, tenacity, perspiration; the latter is fed by moments of awe, or the sheer desperation that we simply have tofinish and so we will.
* * *
They arrive in great big fat ribbons, a glistening bow enfolding the gift of mountain ridge and treetops.
They span a vast landscape tying together the unlikely triplets of skyscraper, interstate, cultivated field—born into one transient family by the miracle-convergence of light and moisture.
Or they appear vaguely in mist, an apparition of color: there you see it, then you don’t.
sea to cloud
filling the negative space between limbs
in the rush of a sunlit waterfall
bisected by power lines
circular, atmospheric, inside which the shadow of the airplane floats
ringing the moon
a slash across the sky
arcing wide and wild
rarely, horizon to horizon—geographical pinpoint of the pot of gold but a daydream of the beholder
Sometimes they are elusive, or simply on vacation someplace else.
* * *
But then I saw one. A real live rainbow. A forgotten co-traveler since wintertime’s sunlessness set in. I watched as one, then another, then a whole prismatic ballet of colordances appeared—infinitely varied in shape, size, step, and tune—as we drove our three hundred miles back up the highway to our own home place.
I realized that right now is “rainbow season.”
Marking the interstices between winters and springs, summers and falls, springs and summers, falls and winters.
Marker of wind, or wind the foreshadowing of rainbow potential. I’m not sure which.
Marking the transition of temperatures.
Marking the sacred ecotone between Earth and firmament.
(Originally posted one year ago.)
All blog images created & photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: "©2019 JenniferJWilhoit/TEALarbor stories. AllRightsReserved."
