# 35 Orange Is the New Black

Orange Is the New Black.

The moon is one orange segment, tipped, hanging so low in the sky it looks like an exclusive lantern hanging above the lone fishing boat whose presence is known only by its lights of the exact same hue out on black water at 3 a.m.

Orange, the fruit readily available in winter so useful for providing the vitamin much needed by the body in the non-growing months in cold climates.

Orange, the political symbol of troubled times and sharp divisions.

Orange, the color streaking horizontally across the sky at dawn.

Winter has gotten to me. A day and evening of a thirty degree downpour has been followed by day after day of bitter cold. Demon winds sent flying anything not firmly tied down, driving the cold past shingles and through bones. Snow, which has fallen so deeply inland, is mostly present as discarded lumps of ice and concrete-hard mounds formed from plowing.

Longing for warmth and release from layers of fleece, wool, down, my skin itches then aches, craving sunlight and air and moisture. Spirits sink along with the downward diving digits on the thermometer.

What comes from long winter days and longer nights, when brief orange flashes stand in for day long yellow blooms and growing green and the blue skies of spring?