The Autobiography Of Rainbow Poem by Paul Hartal

After the rain stops I like to appear in the sky
in opposite direction of the sun, displaying my new dress
in vivid colors. Although the dress is new, I am not young.

If you believe in what scientists say then I was born
about 3,8 billion years ago. It was then that the hot Earth
cooled below 100 degrees celsius and so the water
from its gaseous state condensed into rain, which in turn
filled the basins of the planet and turned into oceans.

My parents are the oceans and sunlight.
The people on Earth pay great attention to my appearance
and color my existence through mythology and religion
and with art and poetry.

I am a symbol of peace and harmony and of love.

Homer in the Iliad wrote that when Aphrodite,
the Greek goddess of love and beauty, was wounded
by the warrior Diomedes, she fled to Olympus
along the Rainbow Road and was carried fast by Iris,
my goddess, the goddess of the Rainbow.

And there is also the Biblical story of Noah and the flood.
The Bible describes Noah as a righteous man and therefore
God saved his life. And Noah built an ark
on which he and his family, as well as all kinds of animals
escaped the catastrophic deluge that devastated the Earth.
In the end of the story God made a covenant with Noah
which was marked by a rainbow. I appeared in the sky,
says the Bible, as a sign of the divine commitment to refrain
from destroying the world again by a flood.

Philosophers and scientists through history
also have taken considerable interest in my life,
calling it a "phenomenon". For example, Aristotle
in the 4th century BCE believed, that I appeared in the sky
by reflecting the sun from drops of water and air.

On the other hand, the great physicist Isaac Newton
in the 17th century examined my existence by probing
the spectrum with a triangular glass prism. He discovered
that white light was not pure and homogeneous but could
be separated into seven distinct colors. My anatomical
parts turned to be red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo
and violet. Newton also saw that these different colors
of the spectrum can be merged again into white light.
He also realized that light rays refract differently.

Thus I—as a rainbow—appear in the sky
when raindrops disperse the components of light
and send each color along a slightly different path.
However, my story is much more complicated than this.
The poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe realised
the shortcomings of Newton's optical discoveries.
In 1810 Goethe published his "Theory of Colors"
In which he cogently demonstrated that the human
experience of my colors is greater than the quantitative
study of the spectrum. Physical optics doesn't explain
the sensation and perception of colors. Goethe also made
important contributions to the understanding
pf complementary colors and after images.

However, the trichromatic color vision theory
was developed later in the 19th century
by Thomas Young and Hermann von Helmholtz.
According to these researchers color perception depends
on three kinds of nerve fibres in the retina which respond
respectively to red, green and violet light.

One also should bear in mind that for the artist
reproducing my rainbow colors spectrally offers little help
because on their palettes painters don't mix
wavelengths of light but absortive capacities of pigments.

Thus, to do justice to my story it is necessary to go beyond
scientific analysis. My life transcends physics and mathematics.
People take delight in my colors, the colors of the rainbow.
Furthermore, it also fills me with bountiful pleasure
that for poets I serve as a teeming source of inspiration.
I know that I might sound unrealistic in saying this
but just for your information I add that I would not mind
even if lovers climbed on my wings to kiss and embrace
each other.