Words That Burn

Something Like a Rainbow, by Christopher Benfey (1954-)

The storms that make it into poems most often

leave something like disaster in their wake:

the wine-glass elms in pieces on the lawn,

the chimney cracked, the basement a shallow lake.

This morning’s storm was nothing much by contrast —

a shiver of wind, no more than a minute’s rain.

Time enough to close the windows fast

in time to have to yake them wide again.

And yet it was as though the world had slept,

or I had, waking now to find out how

a storm will sometimes leave a golden frame

in which there’s room for something like a rainbow

to fan its shifting colors into flame —

a promise rashly made and richly kept.