Rainbows

Don’t go chasing rainbows
In the middle of the night
Because you’ll not find them.
The rainbows were last seen
Flying over Belgium in 1917.

But other townsfolk say it was
An American jet patrol
Shot down a rainbow over the desert
Near Alamogordo.
Only they didn’t shoot; there was no fire,
And it wasn’t the desert.

Still others say the rainbows
Have little to eat and less to see,
Kept in a camp with barbed wire
Down the road a few miles out.
These reports you just can’t doubt.

As for our town these days,
We light the sky at night
With giant lightpoles far too bright:
The mutant children of gas lamps
Whose contribution to pollution
Blinds the turtles, the birds,
The bleary-eyed office worker
In his tower of glass.

Upward, higher, flies the light until
From their space orbit the rainbows see:
The signals, flares, fires, and flashes –
The searing heat that turns glass to ashes.

Silently the rainbows turn
And return to their home planet,
Flying through the dark of night,
Guided by the light of the stars.