October 2024
At the End of a Rainbow
No matter the heart,
Sometimes you’re tired and worn,
Sometimes you’re weak, with the resilience of a
brittle stick;
Sometimes you huddle in yourself like a small
child afraid to speak.
No matter the mind,
Sometimes you don’t recall and blankly smile;
Sometimes your hearing hears nothing, not a
sound,
Sometimes you’ve lost the moment, being
temporarily distracted in a daydream
No matter the strength,
Sometimes there isn’t a single step left in the tank,
Sometimes there is no hanging in there, all your fingertips are worn;
Sometimes there is just no shouldering of
anybody’s load, let alone your own.
No matter the moment,
Sometimes you’re just out of time,
Sometimes your bell no longer tolls;
Sometimes the pendulum in your grandfather’s
clock, now yours, just stops.
Yet near the end of your days you would still take the road less traveled,
Would still stand in the breakers on a distant
beach and primal scream,
Would still dance to the music that courses
through the universe on its way to you,
And take all the grandkids out to a forty-eight-
flavour shop for ice cream,
And then look around for the one you have loved from one end of the rainbow to the other,
to ask her to carry the pot of gold forward, for the both of you,
to the next mountain top. - Dolf Schoenmakers
