NIBLACK - Poem

 NIBLACK

(Copyright 2010, by Dave Kiffer)


Rainbows always fall to earth
Just not into pots of gold
No matter how carefully
You scan the gullies
For the lines of quartz
That shimmer and float
A rainbow streaking
Across the granite faces

You had the advantage
Coming from a wet climate
Knowing how to see through
The relentless vegetation
The others were used
To the naked desert
The veins exposed like
Scars on the belly

Such a solitary time
The scratch of the pick
The quartz, the clay
Falling into the sack
An empty coin bag
Stamped San Francisco
Where your father’s
Dream went bust

You pour the samples
Into the hopper, brush
And scrub away the mud
Rubbing the finer grit
Into the bottom pan
Checking the quartz
Again and again
Squinting harder

You find the color
The stripes of the rainbow
Shining back from the pan
But not enough that you
Don’t have to go back
To the outcrop and strip
Some more tomorrow
And the tomorrow after


Your wife will eventually
Follow you, dragging my
Grandmother and her siblings
Again and again against
Their will and all reason
So her family complained
In those letters that chased
Them ever further north

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