They found him at the end of his Rainbow;

face down.

Tracking  from the beginning

there were swatches of childhood dreaming,

motivating battles and struggles in the seams and creases,

failures and successes revealed in tea leaves;

sometimes smiles, sometimes grief;

but always the Rainbow Ride and Dream.

As he drew closer to it's end

the more he began to count coins in his pot of gold

soon to be where

all the world would be happiness paved;

at the terminus point;

the end

where lived the Rainbow Dream;

all of Efforts Reward enshrined there.

But  the happenstance was

as he came  to his

Rainbow's end--

feet planted

firmly to receive--

what a life's work

had striven for

he found there

only another trail

which re-wound

back to his starting point;

back to him.

Rainbow's end with just him

was no dream, because once

there he realized that the paths

he took also made him unworthy

of Rainbow dreams.

So startling this was to him

his heart failed

because he realized

at Rainbow's end

there could be no Rainbow

with just him

at its end.

He realized that he was not his own dream.

"I,' he said  in the expiring

"was not worth the trip

nor worthy of reaching its end."

So ironic is

the discovery that 

we are often unworthy

at Rainbow end

because our paths there tainted the goal.

 Sad lrony is we must be the Rainbow we seek

otherwise in getting there

we arrive hollowed out

and empty;

because Rainbows

are not destinations

but the process

we use to become complete

human beings.