Chasing Rainbows - Portland Gay Men's Chorus

Chasing Rainbows
by Samson Syharath

A rainbow can be many things.
An arch of colors spanning the sky.
An act of nature.
A spectrum produced by light.
A beacon.
A symbol.

What is a rainbow? For you? For me?
For we are the ones who draw lines between colors.
Define one another.
Confine each other.
Design the rules that control our lives.
And not just our own but that of our children.
The ones we could save.
The young and the brave.
The kids that crave to come out of the closet but get shoved back in.
The kids that don’t make it.
Trapped in the darkness of shame and guilt.
Made to feel alone, separated.
For loving who they love.
For being who they are.
If only they had the key to the unlocked door that traps them.
Held shut by a society who turns their back on what is different.

What is a rainbow, if not hope?
The first object behind a dark sky.
At the end of a storm, when the sun shines most bright.
When there’s rain, then there’s light
When a brick takes flight.
When we are forced to fight for our rights
Fend off forced shame and take pride in who we are.
All of us.
We, the collective.
We, the people.
We, the ones who stand together
Socially distanced but socially engaged.
Together as one.

Freedom from our bubbles.
Freedom from hate.
Freedom from silence.
Freedom to sing.
To dance.
Freedom.
Spanning across everything.
A freedom you can feel wash over you like the sun warming your skin.
A Pulse with a booming beat that it cannot be beaten down.
Unbreakable by bullets.
Unstoppable by stigma.
Unmoving yet seemingly unreachable

What is a rainbow if we cannot touch it?
Intangible yet we know they are there.
A lifelong journey to a vibrant bridge.
A rainbow is a movement forward.
A chase.
Not frozen in time or the past but beyond now.
Reminiscing a time that we’ve not yet experienced.
A dream not forgotten.
A comfort so joyous that our hearts yearn for it.
A ‘future’ that is not fantasy.
It is approaching. It is us.

Commissioned by the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus, June 2021

SAMSON SYHARATH is a Laotian-American actor, director, writer, and educator based in Portland, Oregon. After receiving a B.A. from the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith, Samson trained at the Portland Actors Conservatory. He was part of the Theatre Communications Group’s Rising Leaders of Color Cohort in 2017 featured by American Theatre Magazine and was the recipient of the Portland Civic Theatre Guild’s Leslie O. Fulton Fellowship that same year. He is the Chair of the EDI Committee of the Portland Area Theatre Alliance (PATA) Board, Associate Producer of MediaRites, Managing Artistic Director of Theatre Diaspora and part of the PDX Accountability Collective. www.gettinglaod.com

MISSION
The Portland Gay Men's Chorus aspires to expand, redefine, and perfect the choral art through eclectic performances that honor and uplift our community and affirm the worth of all people.