One of the most beautiful visual treasures in life is a rainbow. I suppose it’s has always been. But the rainbow became a significant beauty for me one summer day when my mother allowed me to run alone to get my father from the park because a storm was coming. I cannot tell you how happy I was.  My joy was palpable.

There was little I was allowed to do on my own back then. I’m the babygirl of nine girls and was small enough to be carried on my family’s shoulders until I was 12 years old. So, impending storm and the park three streets over and to blocks in, my mother said I could go and get my father. Smile…

Daddy saw me. My father’s smile is amazing; everything on his faces seems to smile and you feel what he feels. Laughing eyes and charming grin he grabbed my hand just as the first plump raindrop christened our hands, “Yataski Lee! Hey boy, you came here by yourself?” My father called all of us boy on account he didn’t have any. While most of my sisters have masculine nicknames, my own was Yataski Lee- whatever.

Well we headed off for home, the rain a steady drizzle by the time we reached the corner. But you know the nature of summer showers; one second it’s a downpour and the next a memory framed in sunshine. Well my dad and I turned the corner and neither of us could believe what we were seeing. Arching the street was rainbow after rainbow after rainbow. Well Yataski-Lee would say those rainbows never ended, I can only say there were more than I have ever seen, even until today, one behind the other over and over. It was the most amazing thing either of us had ever seen and we instinctively gripped hands- his wide and strong, my own so tiny as to cuddle inside his palm…

I felt so safe, so free, so perfectly special. In that moment he was my daddy alone all by myself. I still get full when I think of that day, that moment and all it fostered. That archway of rainbows was our free pass for healing and forgiveness for the rest of our years. Every rainbow I see is a reminder of the love built into my dad and me.

There seems to be possession beyond the trees that clears the mind and soul,
I’ve glimpsed the space, imagined its grace, but never known for sure
You see the further I walk, the closer I get to just another tree
My hope becomes weary, the overhang is dreary and I just fall to my knees
Ah this view is so familiar, so wretched, yet my boon
You see my friend it is here it gleams a life that’s coming soon

I go to stand, but stay my stance for my joints have taken root
My chest is hollowed, my back a bow and deep within I shook
The strangest thing occurred just then my eyes were made to see,
The opposite of what I thought was true! The soil was rooting in me!

How peculiar the feel, how fresh the smell that had me now enthralled
I wanted more and needed more, but couldn’t figure why at all
This is earth, mere forest dirt making me feel so free
I had a mind to discount this change coursing inside of me
But woe to the man who denounces the hand who’s created the flesh we feel
I came all this way to get weary one day to find I only needed to kneel

Just then a kiss befell my brow and I look up to see
I had fallen just below the loft of the sycamore tree
And there sat Zacchaeus smiling down, wisdom pooled in his eyes
He gave a nod and turned his head and then I realized
This fall I took was far more than a blessing in disguise
It would clear my mind, heal my woes and press grace into my core
Of this one thing I was certainly sure, I would have to search no more

The roots unfastened, I unbent my limbs
Shoulders pressed west, straightening of stem
I welcomed grace with countenance placed
And felt my foundations shift
Zacchaeus moved form and then was gone
And on my right was his gift

Empty was the box
Full was the thought in revealing the saving truth
I needed nothing at all
But to fall and allow grace her sanctioned due