The Rainbow by Emily M Sujka

This is how I paint my rainbow:

red, orange, yellow.

But others start with rouge, orange, jaune,

And call it an arc-en-ciel.

There's another part of the world

That calls it tecza,

Czerwony, pomaranczowy, zólty.

Yet, the rainbows don't stop there,

Isnt that wonderful?

The geshet begins adom, khatom, tzahov.

How else does a rainbow inaugurate?

Where arcoiris reigns,

It's by way of rojo, naranjo, amarillo.

Are they not the same,

The same colors?

Does one know a different amarillo,

See wavelengths that spell 2-ó-t-t-y rather?

Does the color red

whisper adom in my neighbor's ear amongst words I'II never understand?

To believe this is only the beginning,

Green, blue, and purple arriving in subsequence.

The words stray again,

Vert, bleu, violet,

Yarok, kachol, sagol.

But it's all the same light caught turned over

and returned to our retinas gently

for us to awe, the universal language of humanity.

Emily's Bio

Emily M. Sujka received her BA in economics from New York University, leading her to roles in finance, higher education, and the arts at institutions ranging from BY Mellon to the Morse Museum. She is a writer by passion, and her poetry has been published in several Florida poetry anthologies, displayed in exhibitions, and compiled into two books: "Beautiful Ends (2021)" and "Has Naught (2026)." She publishes regularly as a freelance coffee writer and as the foreign editor for Roast Different, covering cafes and the coffee industry. It's her "Personal Legend" that-despite having already been to all seven continents-continues to take her around the world.