Signed with a rainbow

I have set my rainbow in the clouds,

Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life

That is the covenant HE made with us – NO MORE

I am consumed with the thoughts of rainbows

Is it because we just witnessed two ‘almost floods’

Or maybe because it was a promise,

And promises, we were always told, need to be kept, 

Never again, signed with a rainbow

Whenever it rains, I raise my eyes to the clouds 

I search for the arc of luminous colors,

I yearn for the promise,

Never again

Red fields of blueberries

Roses can be yellow,

Blueberry fields blaze in red

Are colors only illusions in our heads.

Where I live, behind the setting of sparkling blue water and deep greens, hide miles, upon miles of blueberry Barrens, one of Maine’s main crops.

When the season starts, in early May, they are light green, but when it ends, in late August, they turn blazing red. Of course, for a while in the middle, true to their name they are dotted with tiny dark blue, almost purple blueberries.

A blueberry field in the fall looks like the face of the moon (as I imagine it looks) endless and flat. All shades of red intermingle, and an occasional meandering rock usually stuck in the middle, nature’s way to break the monotony.

It is an ancient glacial land, rocky and sandy. The early morning fog is rising from the ocean and rolls over it in as it does late at night. It adds to the eerie appearance.

Blue is not my color

Blue is your color, my mother always said,

When we went shopping for material, for a new dress,

 Or a skirt, or a blouse, or even pants

We would cruise the downtown’s stores for hours

Folding and unfolding, reels of cotton, or prints,

Or jersey, spreading blue like a pair of magicians

Dragging my feet behind her hurried steps,

I lowered my head trying to fade

When my opinion was, so rarely, requested.

Blue, let it be blue, I dutifully whispered

Knowing the worse is yet to come,

When measurements will be taken.

In front of the full-length mirror,

Her mouth full of pins,

I was stabbed and pricked and restless

Never able to stand still.

First, second, even third fitting, until a dress,

Or a skirt, or a blouse, were completed

Blue, always blue.

Light, or dark, or jersey or prints

But at night, in my dreams,

Ready-made clothes on hangers

A rainbow of colors; yellows and whites

And purples, even orange

Blue is not my color,

I tell her every time I shop,

Now by myself

Blue is not my color,

Red, or pink, even green will do,

And where she is, I hope she finally agrees.