To Catch Rainbows (excerpt)

         "Smells like rain's coming," my mama states. She was glistening from her forehead, and she quickly patted away at the sweat beads. I glanced out of the screen door and watched as slate-gray clouds strolled across the sky. Unlike my mother, I loved the rain; I see it as God's way of baptizing the world, purifying us from our iniquities. I love to hear His heavenly drummers throughout the sky, and see the rain dance against my window to the rhythm they created; now lightning, that I could do without. My friend, Laurelle, said that lightning was the angels' way of taking pictures of us; she always had a vivid imagination. But, what I absolutely loved about storms the most was what came after: a big, prismatic rainbow.          When I was younger, Laurelle and I used to run into the woods with Mason jars, searching for the end of the rainbow. When we found it, we'd "catch" it, and watched as the rainbow radiated throughout its glass prison. Of course, we "freed" it afterwards. This was a tradition for Laurelle and I, simply called "catching rainbows".