Rainbow

“O Lord, our God, how glorious is your name over all the earth!”
-Ps. 8

When the first hint of color, little more than a sun dog, faded in, way up in the clouds, I was probably the only one who saw it. But soon it slid upward over the hump and planted its opposite foot in the south, an image of God’s hands extended in blessing over the earth.

A few short miles later, the southern toe of that arch had expanded into something voluptuous and solid--as different from the average rainbow as skim milk is from cream--glowing bright enough to slice a piece to wrap around my neck like a scarf. By Warrenton, it was saturated with color, and the excess was spilling over into a halo of a second. By the time I passed the weigh station at Foristell, barreling eastward at 70 mph, it had lost weight and turned wispy.

That would have been enough, but before the rainbow had disappeared altogether, there came a magical sunset hard on the heels of the storm. A sunset of molten golds--rose, yellow, and white--tinted the air, making it a living thing, finding nooks and crannies in the clouds and coating each leaf with fairy dust. As I barrelled eastward I could only watch in my rearview. But over the Missouri River bridge, I had to act. I pulled off at the first exist and took a picture back across the bottoms, through a set of fat black power lines draped next to the road. Not a picture I will print, but one that needed to be taken nonetheless.