Color Chemist Leaves The Paper Mill

The Color Chemist Leaves
The Paper Mill
On A Winter Day
by Elizabeth Southwood

The color chemist left the mill,
stooped to avoid an icicle.
His child was along for the ride.
He saw the miniscule trickle

of the chill brook freezing beside
the mill in wooded countryside.
A waterfall, close by a bridge,
then caught his eye. Did he decide

it would not be a sacrilege
to toss some dye on that white ledge
of thick ice with its frozen flow
as arctic as a glacier's edge?

His eyes sparkling, he gauged his throw,
cast for his daughter a rainbow
which bloomed on pristine ice and snow,
a stained glass window al fresco.