A perfect moment

Yesterday afternoon was just the right sort of weather for sitting in the park, so towards sunset Renee and I headed down to the little park below us, which has a view across the water and a lovely, long fish pond with a stone bridge across it. The plan was to sit on a bench and watch the light fade, sunset itself being hidden by the hills behind.

Our plan stumbled when we discovered a wedding in progress on the half of the park with the best benches, and then there were sprinkles of rain. We sat on a stone bench by the bridge, sheltered by some trees overhead, and waited for the shower to pass. The violin players in the wedding didn't seem to mind much; they stayed out even as it sprinkled. But the shower soon passed and we moved to a bench at the other end of the park, away from the wedding but still with musical accompaniment. From there, we could look out across the grass and pond and towards the water. The park is small, the pond just a few paces in front of us.

There were five ibises wandering on the grass by the verge of the pond, poking their long beaks into the grass to find worms, plus a couple of gulls and pigeons lolling about.

Sunset started to get more colorful; the clouds started to go pink and the buildings in the distance, by the harbor, illuminated by the setting sun, glowed a rich orange.

Here, then, is the scene: in front of us, grass with ibises and other birds, then a babbling pond with koi, a few flowers and bushes, then the harbor with boats. Towards the right, a stone bridge over the pond, the wedding party, and glowing buildings. In the sky above, pink puffy clouds against a blue sky and above that, a quarter moon. Through all of this, the violins played gentle music.

The sunset strengthened, the colors deepened.

The ibises moved to the right and formed a little pack of five. From the left came a couple of folks with three beagles straining at their leashes. They pulled towards the ibises, who stared back at them. All froze. These two groups framed the grass, then above them, pond and bushes and boats and water and sky and pink clouds and then a rainbow popped out just below the moon, arcing like an ibis's beak from left, above the beagles, over to the right, towards the orange buildings and the wedding party, whose music continued to accompany this magic scene, a painting in real life, a Victorian tableau, a perfect moment.