March 2026 (Vol. XXXIX, No. 3)
Dear Friends ~ Rainbows may seem a rather glib focus for a March newsletter, but stick with me. Overplayed as they are in early Spring, I have the compounding factor of rainbow-enthusiast housemates; children pushing me to the next level of septacolored semicircles, selecting every story rendering a rainbow. As my spiritual directors, my children implore me to read and reread favorite picture books ad nauseum; a Lectio Devina of a bedtime reading ritual.
In truth, and not at all disingenuously, I find a deep well in children's literature. And rainbows, as both a physical phenomenon and illustrative image, offer seemingly endless edification, reaching back into our ancient stories and traditions around the globe and ahead into our scientific understanding of how we perceive our world on a narrow spectrum of visible light, with much to see beyond our means.
flit of brightness so startling they have to blink
to believe their eyes. Be the reason someone looks up
from the cracked blankness of concrete and remembers
the world is so much larger than what's locked inside
head and heart. Be the red swoop from free to tree,
the thread that stitches one uncertain moment to the next.
The Sun said to the Clouds, "Remember when we used to be together all the time and make rainbows?"
The Clouds nodded. "I'm sorry for going clap bang boom! at you," said the Clouds.
"I'm sorry for going sizzle sizzle sizzle! at you," said the Sun.
"It's better being friends!" said the Sun, and the Clouds agreed. They hugged. The Sun shined brightly and the Clouds misted happy rain. Ever so slowly, rainbows reappeared near and far, turning the world colorful once again.
the sky, the snow
builds a mountain
unto itself.
Some drifts can be
thirty feet high.
Picture a house.
Then bury it.
Plows come from both
ends of the road,
foot by foot, month
by month. This year
they didn't meet
in the middle
until mid-June.
Maybe I'm not
expressing this
well. Every year,
snow erases
the highest road.
We must start near
the bottom and
plow toward each
other again.
I too have known loneliness.
I too have known what it is to feel
misunderstood,
rejected, and suddenly
not at all beautiful.
Oh, mother earth,
your comfort is great, your arms never withhold.
It has saved my life to know this.
Your rivers flowing, your roses opening in the morning.
Oh, motions of tenderness!
I've had so many rainbows in my clouds
I had a lot of clouds
So I don't ever feel
I have no help
I've had rainbows in my clouds
And the thing to do it seems to me
Is to prepare yourself
So that you can be a rainbow
In somebody else's cloud
Your days pass like rainbows, like a flash of lightning, like a star at dawn. Your life is short. How can you quarrel?
What do we call visible light? We call it color. But the electromagnetic spectrum runs to zero in one direction and infinity in the other, so really, children, mathematically, all of light is invisible.
Food is rarely in short supply for Saskatoons but mobility is rare. Movement is a gift of the pollinators, but the energy needed to support the buzzing around is scarce. So the trees and the insects create a relationship of exchange that benefits both.
One little bee peeks out to see
A world of grey and snow.
She's looking for bright colors.
And she needs you to help them grow.
To give happiness to others is a great happiness, too.