Rainbows Unwoven?

Another rainbow yesterday -- and this time it was double. 

Such a spectacular natural phenomenon demands a good story -- whether the Irish tale of a pot of gold at the rainbow's end. . .

Or the biblical story of a sign from God that the Earth will not again perish from flood . . .

Many cultures saw the rainbow as a bridge between this world and another . . .

Or a goddess's necklace, a heavenly snake, the bow of a celestial hunter . . .

Does the scientific explanation of the rainbow as an optical phenomenon caused by the light of the sun on moisture in the Earth's atmosphere  destroy its beauty?

John Keats thought so and said as much in his poem Lamia.

Do not all charms fly

At the mere touch of cold philosophy?

There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:

We know her woof, her texture; she is given

In the dull catalogue of common things.

Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings,

Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,

Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine –

Unweave a rainbow

I don't think so.

I tend to agree with the poet Wordsworth who said:

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!…

 

Random Bits

We get lots of rainbows -- this one was especially low. Once we had a tiny one, stretching from the barn, across our drive way, and into the pasture. We haven't found the gold yet.

But the butterflies have found the butterfly bush . . .

Biggify to see the half-rainbow emerging from the trees on the left. . .

At the back door, a Georgia O'Keefe sort of grouping. . .

Stormy evening sky . . . more rain ahead.