We stopped at the lakeside
and saw our first rainbow.
It bled from a rusty sky,
imported from a world unfamiliar
to us both.
This was our special moment,
it was our rainbow and our sky,
not visible to anyone else.
The moment lingered around us,
and the rainbow faded into memory.
As the candle flame sun crept
like a ghost through an opening sky,
the lake shimmered its image.
And with a swirl of leaves,
the day slipped back into Autumn.
Rowland Hughes is a Welsh writer and poet. He was born, and lived until his late teens, in the Rhondda Valley, from where he still draws most of his inspiration. He worked as a Master Decorator and studied trades in the construction industry. He later became a Local Authority Assistant Surveyor. Due to ill health, he retired in 1997. In 1998, he joined a Cardiff University Creative Writing Group. He loves to observe people, places and nature, writing in bustling cafés and the confines of his writing shed.