Synopsis
Levi must fight forbidding forces of nature to attempt rescue of his brother Jake, who is caught in a tropical storm. A ghostly presence leads him to confront his lifelong envy of his brother, leading to the realisation that all he’d ever had to do was act like him, someone who was not only talented but dedicated to sharing his energy to those who need it.
Rainbow Bridge
Elemental antagonism, spears cyclone-sharpened.
Goose-bump plastered as if wind-blast skin grafted.
Next the dirt track attacks, pinpricks of sand batter his skin,
Numbed bum and discouraged – better fight this blusterous assassin.
Thighs clamped to the rattling bike, Levi persists in his mission,
As sand fills his eyes, the motorcycle slides and grinds,
Switch to blindfold overdrive
As memories of his brother Jake, flood his vision.
A phantasmagorical touch takes over, displaces his innate self-restraint,
Forgetting who he is, with this ghostly grasp of his waist
Stabilising the bike, and the wavering of a pilot light
Lit in his heart by Jake’s call, on this ominous, long night.
In the rear mirror, twinkling eyes appear, like those of a ghost,
Lapis-lazuli-blue, Jake’s trademark chick-magnet hue,
Within gilded-framed haloes.
Soul portals done up as peacock-feather rainbows.
At dawn, hurled abruptly to the edge of a river,
He’s stunned at the sight of a pristine, cyan mirror,
Impossible to imagine the same plane of water
Whisked into a foaming frenzy, only a day earlier.
At the other side of a ferry ride – if it was still a valid passage
Lays a village ravaged, of unassessed fatalities and damage,
Though a fading rainbow bridge seems to land on the island, where –
His brother’s team had ventured with vax and meds to volunteer.
On recalling a childhood belief of Jake’s, in rainbow navigation –
To the ferryman’s frustration, with a broken ferry and crowded station
Like a net of helpless, writhing fish, cut off from tsunami-struck family –
‘He’s still alive!’ Levi starts howling in a fit of insanity.
Repeating ‘Jake’s alive!’; winding up as a whispery mantra.
Yet feeling lifeforce beyond just some apparitional enchantment,
How else could he be connected to Jake’s energy sphere?
Pushing past people, possessed, he finds a toolbox at the boat’s rear.
Arm tingling, Levi lifts a wrench not through thought, but by ether,
Then rolls up his sleeves, as if he knows what to do here,
Just as Jake would, handy under the hood,
Perfect physique on exhibit.
But it was Jake’s polished demeanour and humour, bringing the real allure,
Spicing up stories of exotic world wanderings,
Beyond-frontiers doctoring,
At-risk youth mentoring,
And his extensive knowledge of gardening and cooking –
All that, had non-stop women looking.
At the island medical tent Jake’s colleagues all agreed,
The superiority of a man, everything Levi believed –
That he could never be,
Stricken with the constraints of ego-driven uncertainty.
Except for that wild ride against the wind, chasing a rainbow,
Only to find Jake had departed, almost twenty-four hours ago.
Going to say goodbye, in the pop-up infirmary,
His dead brother’s eyes flicker open,
One last peacock dance, a dying showman,
A ghostly glimpse at the freedom of eternity.
An island devastated, a village in disarray,
Although not in his nature, Levi decides to stay.
Awash in disaster, swimming through dirt and debris,
With sand-stung eyes, he locates bodies intuitively.
He dives deep into a sinkhole that swallowed some others,
Building, restoring power, planting as tribute to his brother.
A village revived, when Levi’s to ready ride home –
Only now without a brother, starting anew,
Straddling his bike, he looks back for one last goodbye, in the shiny, polished rear-view.
Capturing the reflection of his own eyes, astonished at the interconnecting sight –
Unclouded by that illogical old, edge of fright; all the colours back to life.
Surfer in the squalls of a spectral ocean, transcending the darkest night,
He revs his bike and sets forward, riding prismatic waves of light.
Shayley blair 