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Asheville

Have I told you about the rainbow I found
in the fountain you told me I must circle
after I’d left all the beautiful men
who wrote stories and poems of love?
Oh, yes, those curved bands happened.
Oh, yes, I danced those seven
colors when morning brought my flight
away from where wild blackberries
had opened blossoms as I climbed
to answer mountains’ misted call.
As time disappeared again
I held the river in my body,
how it had carried us along
past white tents of travelers’ secrets,
a curl of smoke, smooth violins
filling Spring with more than promise
of why good friendship sings.
Across the years, across the miles
I carry our few days of being
bright together, how we became
all that rainbow signified:
what fullest giving brings.

for Brad

—
Katharyn Howd Machan has been writing and publishing for half a century. She lives and teaches in Ithaca, New York with her beloved spouse and fellow poet Eric Machan Howd. She directed the Feminist Women’s Writing Workshops, Inc., and served as Tompkins County’s first poet laureate. She belly dances.

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