In the Era of Rainbows

the four-year-olds leaned over their papers

and colored in the all-too-familiar lapidary arch

of blue, violet, yellow, brick red, and orange

from green earth up to the sky-blue heavens

and back down again, while at the end of the table

the writer’s son inscribed an arch of darkness, devoid of color,

no friendly strip of earth’s greenery carpeting

the bottom of the page. So why, I asked,

is your rainbow black, Matthew? Because,

he said, looking me in the eye,

it is night.