Eating Rainbows

On clear summer nights, the sky in Texas becomes a surreal blue that makes everything framed against it look like a movie prop. The crispness of the fading light deceives the eye, making three-dimensional objects look flat and round at the same time. Trees inhabit both a one-dimensional and a multi-dimensional world. It's a trick of the eye, I suppose.

But I always think of Alice and her Wonderland. Or of Billy Pilgrim, who came unstuck in time.

Nevertheless, it still takes my breath away. A tree becomes living art for that short time until the light fades. Buildings seem closer and larger at close range.

Sometimes I wander outside and feel like a little boy seeing his first rainbow. I'm all awe, wonder and questions. "Where'd that come from? Who made it? Can I touch it? What’s it made of? What does it feel like? Can we keep it?"

I know the science of rainbows all these years after I was a little boy, but I still think of them as miracles, gifts from God, and not atmospheric phenomena.

I’ve grown up, but there’s still a little boy inside who knows what they taste like : light, hope, joy.

Just like the Texas sky on summer nights when it glows a color of blue that I had forgotten existed.

May the wonder and awe never leave me.