Once, there were, before ancestors
were, no rainbows and all colors
flowed the river upstream, below,
in slime, life evolved to death,
to tadpoles, with no knowledge
of land, swimming between colorful
strands, then the hard rain, colors
stained the land, tadpoles walked,
with hesitance, through a mire
of colors, stained their toes
and torsos and heads, chameleons,
blended invisible, after forty days,
only Noah saw blacks and whites,
so much drowned, evolved, as the Lord
withdrew, with shaky head, away
from the sun, as earth dried, as colors
rose as mountains, as a new man,
once a tadpole, who invented the piano
string, wraps each end around each fist,
taught enough to form a chord,
or melody, and slices each rainbow
curl of color, then splices, shapes
a spiral colored stair from swamp
to sky for Noah, and/or God, to descend
into all, and every mother, they drowned.
For twenty-two years, Tom Holmes was the founding editor and curator of Redactions: Poetry & Poetics. Holmes is also the author of five full-length collections of poetry, including The Book of Incurable Dreams (Xavier Review Press) and The Cave, which won The Bitter Oleander Press Library of Poetry Book Award for 2013, as well as four chapbooks. He teaches at Nashville State Community College (Clarksville). His writings about wine, poetry book reviews, and poetry can be found at his blog, The Line Break: thelinebreak.wordpress.com/. Follow him on Twitter: @TheLineBreak