There are days when the space between winter and spring is simply too much.
This is one: sustained winds between thirty and forty miles an hour, a sun that blinds but doesn’t warm, air like blade of the sharpest of knives.
This is the hardest season.
There are no leaves on the trees yet; should the driving wind put your skin within reach of their branches, they become whips, ready to lash face and hair and body. Of course, the gale may just as easily blow you off your feet entirely, bringing you in sudden close contact with still-muddy soil.
It’s a dangerous time to be abroad. On days such as this, there is no escape.
And so we huddle indoors away from the traitorous sun, hoping the walls remain proof against the wind. Even the animals mostly know better than to risk their wrath — all save one lonely prairie dog standing his solitary watch at the mouth of the burrow.
It’s enough to obfuscate the beauty of place, this bitter wind. There’s no enjoying the blue sky or clear air; it’s impossible to stand still and unmolested long enough to notice. And despite the mud, the sun has dried enough topsoil during this drought-ridden winter to turn the distant air to smoky haze, peaks lashed with the dust of a million trillion grains of sand.
But in those brief lulls, those rare moments when even the wind tires of its own voice, we look up: And the sky is electric blue, the willows gilded rain. In that brief moment between breaths, when the Earth’s elemental fury spends itself, just for now, the world becomes neon blue.
It’s the name of the photo, Neon Blue, one that Wings took this winter. It captures perfectly the cold brilliant sky of the season, the studded gilt whips of the winter willows. And it reminds me that there is beauty in fury, in the icy intensity of the gale.
It is not a safe beauty, not one to approach too closely or too long.
But in a season of dangerously elemental force, it is a gift, a brief electric moment of brilliance to fire the spirit.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
