Moonbow

It hadn't been the longest day at work, but it had been long enough. I'm driving home from work at 10pm, the open sunroof shearing a wisp of spring breeze from the rushing air to blow lightly through the cabin, which ruffles my hair amidst the soft glow of dash lights and picture-perfect moonlight. We crest the top of the hill and I take my foot off the gas, coasting the last half-mile home. It's late, and I'm tired, but it's a beautiful spring night.

I turn left into the driveway and get out to open the gate, and as I swing the iron frames clear of the driveway I cast a glance skywards and the sight stops me cold in my tracks.

It is a beautiful night. Unusually so, and this one's worth sharing before I go to bed. I pull into the garage, pull the key, and step into the house. "Hey, everyone - it's a nice moon tonight. Come out and have a look!"

Shining stars and motes of mist gather in audience. A formal audience in the celestial court is an unexpected event full of anticipation and trepidation. Through the eons, the greater denizens of the heavens have been known for their constancy of manner, tracing solemn, dignified paths through the sky. The Queen in her full radiance would dominate the sky, but as is her habit, she changes the strength of her presence night by night. Queen she may be, but the sky is for stars, and as often as not, she leaves the serene night to the sound of their voices. But a formal audience requires a fullness of bearing, and tonight, she shines brightly indeed.

My brother and parents wander past the yawning garage door and tilt their heads toward the sky, bathed in the brightness of a full moon. It's a misty evening, but there's so much light that we can see all the trees and foliage in the yard surrounding the driveway, make out the edges of individual maple leaves and the profile of individual needles of home-grown rosemary. The darkness of night holds few mysteries tonight, as the light makes even the sides of the hills surrounding our house distinct and discernible.

The Queen speaks softly in a voice full of power. Her words fly to the ends of heaven and earth, commanding attention with gentle authority. Whereas the light of the daytime King, glorious but domineering, claims the entire firmament for himself, the queen's voice is not so opaque. Hers allows all to be seen, whilst still allowing all to be heard. When the King holds court, the stars have no voice. The Queen, being a better listener, finds that a clearer, calmer brilliance suits her needs better. The court gathers around her, settling with dignity and decorum. In a quiet ceremony blessed with order and dignity, the shining mists and the lordly stars gather in attendance at a deferential distance about the Queen, forming a perfect circle of twinkling light, unmoving, yet breathing deeply with life.

A thin fog hangs in the air high above our heads, drifting across the sky at a pace vigorous enough to see with night-adapted eyes. Too thin to form true clouds, it flows like a slow current of steam across the sky at a pace somewhere between lazy and daydreamy. Most striking, however, is the perfect circle of glowing light hovering about moon like an enormous halo stretching halfway across the sky. At first it just seems to hang suspended in the heavens just beneath the moon, still and unmoving. As our eyes continue to adapt to the night sky, we start to see that the glowing haze, appearing motionless at first, actually seems to cast off slow curls of vapor, almost like wafting across dry ice. Though the rest of the sky glows faintly with starlight and drifting, moon-brushed fog, the sky within the halo is a deep expanse of perfect, crystalline darkness, interrupted only by the blazing moon in perfect relief at its exact center. Even the stars within shine less brightly than those outside the halo. Mom coos with delight while my brother purses his lips in amused puzzlement. My dad glances back at me with a knowing smile, probably wondering if my hazy recollection of physics has figured out where the enormous, dazzling halo is coming from.

The exciteable, miniscule sprites drift and coast about with great relative speed in a great crowd huddled around the Queen's forum. Caught up in the regal spectacle of the event, they roil about with nervous energy, straining to catch every word, see every motion. Most of the stars, the lesser lords of the sky, hover in their usual places, fully capable and content to participate from their own serene perches. A few stars move within the forum, whispering to the Queen and amongst themselves, keeping order, and briefing the Queen and one another on tonight's agenda. They also maintain the peace; for all her love and understanding, the Queen's forum remains a sacred space and the stars ensure that it remains orderly and clear.

"It's a rainbow." Dad smiles and nods. "Uh-huh. A rainbow can appear as a perfect circle of refracted light; we usually only see part of it but if all the suspended moisture that's creating it is in view, you can see that the diffracted light come in from all angles. That's why you can see a full circle in the spray of a garden hose or from the window of an airplane. It looks like tonight, the moon is bright enough and fog in the air just right to catch and diffract the moonlight into, well, a moonbow." "And the sky inside the moonbow is darker than the sky outside, just like a rainbow. The white light that gets diffracted into a rainbow has had its path diverted from elsewhere in the sky; the thick band of light has to come from somewhere, so the part of the sky inside a rainbow seems darker because some of the light from within the rainbow is being bent away and concentrated into the rainbow."

"And that's why, if you look closely enough, you can see that the halo isn't perfectly white. One edge is just a tiny bit pink, and the other is just a tiny bit blue."

As the scene settles into focus, millions of small voices gather in chorus, singing and chanting their cares to the Queen. Kept civil and orderly by stars many times their brightness, they observe the decorum but begin to separate into bands of differing viewpoints, different concerns. White, worshipful throngs of vapors sing the skies’ praises as they rejoice in the grandeur of the audience itself. Millions more of skybound sprites cast billowing ripples of reddish light as they air grievances, urgent requests, or counterpoised defenses. They restrain their agitation in the presence of the Queen and the ever-watchful elder stars but cannot fully contain their anxiety and intensity, pushing their way to the edges of the forum’s halo in an effort to be heard. While each voice is too small to see, collectively their efforts ruffle the outer edge of the halo with the energy of a billion murmuring debates. The Queen stands in the center, observing them all as the throngs outside drift past in quiet observation. And we, standing on terra firma, gaze upward as the forum opens a great portal allowing us to peer far past the dome of the sky. It is as though heaven itself drew back a curtain of nebulae and light to reveal an expanse of dark, beautiful infinity, a vast and inverted chasm of crystal clear blackness. The sight beckons your perspective up and out of your body, soaring skyward to revel in unfettered freedom.