A Rainbow Gift

          There is always something interesting when one visits Robyn Hood Black’s blog, Read, Write, Howl.  Today is no exception, because she is hosting Poetry Friday!  Come join us to read some beautiful words.  Thanks to Robyn for hosting, and don’t forget to check out her new blog, Artsy Letters, all about creativity and sometimes talking about her new Etsy shop.  Beautiful things can be seen there!

Looks like night, but it was about noon.

         There is such allure about rainbows.  We wish upon them, we write songs about them, we use them to study weather, and we hope someday to find a pot of gold, and perhaps  meet a leprechaun, because we’ve finally made it to Ireland.  Today’s post is about the phenomenon I saw yesterday. Luckily I could take a photo quickly.  I found one possible explanation for what I observed yesterday (in my photo above).  It is called a “firecloud”.  According to a news report here, “They're given the colloquial name of "fire rainbows" and they are due to high, wispy clouds that are made of tiny ice crystals, and if the cloud is at the right angle to the sun, the crystals will refract the sunlight (much like a prism) into the colors of the rainbow. 
I was enthralled, and had to write a poem about this phenomenon.

          Rainbow Cloud

I glimpsed a piece of rainbow

yesterday;

I saw it as I walked into my school.

We don’t see many rainbows here

in Colorado;

They stay up in the clouds,

our weather rule.

Our clouds in Colorado

Are quite beautiful

We see them floating high

in luminous ways.

And if we had our wishes

come true for us,

We’d wish for rainbows

And trade a sunny day.

But this cloud near the sun

was raining buckets

or so it looked from

many miles away.

I saw its rainbow edge

and grabbed my camera,

I’m glad I took the shot.

It warmed my day.

          One site I read said sometimes when these fireclouds are seen, they foretell rain within 24 hours.  We haven’t had rain, but will have snow on Saturday, a blessing for us!