The Arts and Sciences    by  Linda Pastan

When our third grade science teacher
taught us the colours of the spectrum,
he must have told how light
can be divided, of how it travels

the vast acreage between stars.
He must have mentioned rainbows,
how they consist of fractured drops of water.
It doesn't matter; I didn't listen.

For the first time I had fallen
for a handful of syllables.
"Indigo" and "violet" lit the fuse:
language is what I burn for.

©Linda Pastan

pub. Great River Review