Isaac Newton reorders the rainbow by Lucinda Trew

Isaac Newton reorders the rainbow | Lucinda Trew

            ordering things comes naturally
in quantum physics, equations, quartets
and kitchen drawers – it’s a question of symmetry
and sequence, the frequency of waves, echo
of violin strings, whisper of bat wings

            the perception of what belongs where –
an arrowhead of geese, the nesting of spoons
and the pinhole in Newton’s window shade,
pitching a blade of blond light onto wall,
the ricochet of refraction

            through a prism of glass, a reckless rainbow
in need of sorting to curve chaos into order
like the musical scale, symphonically spliced
and quartered, square peg, round hole
and a second blue – indigo

            for Newton knew the mysticism
of music and mathematics, the alchemy of seven
seven notes and seven wonders, seven sacred
luminaries circling a single sun, a kaleidoscope
of reason, with indigo blue shoehorned in

            the color of dusk and dream
songbirds with sky wings, a half note for harmony
and making order of things

About the Author:

Lucinda Trew lives and writes in Union County, North Carolina. Her work has been published in Susurrus Magazine, Burningword Literary Journal, The North Carolina Literary Journal, Anti-Heroin Chic, storySouth, and other journals and anthologies. She is Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and recipient of Boulevard Magazine’s 2023 Poetry Contest for Emerging Poets. Her chapbook “What Falls to Ground” is forthcoming from Charlotte Lit Press.