Rainbow Fire Poem by Doug Stewart

It will be on the edge of spring,
Well past the cusp of bitter
Winter, when the after-hate begins.

It will be, they will say, as if a rage had
Spent itself, like a forest burning
Itself out into new growth, new life.

And I wait for the total thaw to
See if it would keep its life light
Focused, or if blind wrath would

Return, guns blazing, nostrils flaring,
Plunging us into the Color War once more
Or if sanity and the sweet Dreams of Dr.

King would rule minds, hearts, natures;
Some wait on what most feel is fate or gods
Or evolution, but is, in truth, the raw wind of youth

A tornado, a cleansing blast of reason across the prairies
And the corn fields, and the byways of the hearts of us.