Redwing

The readers of poetry, the writers of

poetry. Nation inside

the nation. That rainbow holding briefly over

the Strait of Juan de Fuca, its violet

inner rim, its guess-work dome

of crimson. My back to the sun for this

to happen at all, the eye extending

its shadow until it sees into

what it doesn't see. I don't have to think

of raindrops hanging as light, or to command

the schoolbook corpses of refraction and

internal reflection to be dazzled. The myth

of the Vilela Indians, its rainbow

a gigantic serpent charmed

by a small girl until it sheds her

sway and piecemeal ravages the world, vanquished

at last by an army of birds-that's good enough

for me. And victory too, each bird

dipping itself in the blood

of the monster.