SPLIT-SECOND RAINBOWS

"Nevada Rainbow", oil,
by Don Gray

I once saw a surprising, split-second rainbow -- similar, in a way, to the wonders I saw in my English classes. This was an especially wondrous rainbow – a sudden and extensive crescent of colors above a small cloud in an otherwise blue sky. Usually rainbows, at least in my experience, appear after some rain, but this one was different and sort of shocking, since it seemed to arise from nowhere. Later, it made me think about the small miracles that suddenly showed up in the midst of some of my classes – rainbows in the form of colorful feelings and thoughts shared by the students. During our literary discussions, we often went through some minutes of fairly mundane remarks, but then, usually before long, a student said something that stunned all of us, sort of like my rather astonishing rainbow. For a moment or two, the students and I sat silent with wonder at the student’s startling comment, but soon its magnificence faded away, like the transitory rainbow, and we were left with the usual and simple successes of English class, sort of like the blue sky when the rainbow was suddenly nowhere to be seen.