Color.
Back to back, I witnessed the colors of sunset and sunrise.
The angled light as the sun lowered in the sky turned ordinary grass into the deepest emerald perhaps because it was in contrast to the nearby ocean that was turning from silver to nearly navy blue. The low angle of the light reflected from the underwings of gulls flying high, brilliant white flashes that were repeated by the underwings of the jet plane flying so much higher. This intensely colored world lasted only minutes. Does the sun move more rapidly as it approaches the horizon, almost if it can’t wait to tuck under?
I am awake early and see first light as steaks of fuchsia, pinks and purples, before the sun rises over black water. A small lobster boat moves out to sea, a tiny yellow and a tiny green light marking its movement across the horizontal plane giving scale to the vast sky which is its backdrop.
We think of Fall as the season of color, the brilliance of yellow-orange-red as the leaves prepare to depart their summer perches for soft ground landings or when, in swirls, they spin in gusts of wind. Often the October sky seems the bluest blue we’ve ever seen. Saturated color oozes everywhere we look.
Is this spectacular color preparing us for what comes so shortly after? The world of whites, and grays, and blacks is so close now and it lasts so long.
The Marginal Way 