Beverly Pearl's "Rainbow" follows a family through a sudden storm and out the other side. The first half is all noise and gloom: thunder rumbles like a freight train, the sky is dark, and rain races down the window as if it might flood the drain. The lights flicker, and the family hurries to shut the door. Even the mother, who seems the steady one, says she has never seen anything like it.
Then everything changes in a moment. The rain stops, and the silence is what tells them so. When they open the latch, a rainbow has "touched down softly" against the black sky.
The speaker seems first anxious, then caught off guard by wonder. The mood moves from tense and loud to calm and bright. The final word, "mismatch," is a nice choice, because the poem's pleasure comes from that contrast: a glowing patch of sun set right beside the storm's dark leftovers.