Yesterday’s skies were sunny and clear until dusk, at which point the smoke plume to the north and the bands of clouds to the west meet and melded into a pale gray-gold glow. Unbeknownst to us until late, the clouds continued to spread, and they were still with us this morning.
The possibility of rain forecast for tomorrow, then retracted days ago, has once again returned, if only with a small chance, and while there is plenty of blue overhead, there is plenty of pale gray building around the horizon, too.
It’s not substantial enough to be a harbinger, but it’s still ground for hope.
To that end, it occurred to me that imagery that depicts what currently is might perhaps be better replaced by the sort that depicts what we hope will soon be: jewel-stoned skies, trees fully leafed, all the medicine to be found in the light of setting sun and summer storm.
That sent me on a search for images from a summer’s twilight nine years ago, a few moments of pure magic at the end of a day of hard physical labor, hurrying to beat the cycles of the storm. These were the years before the drought’s death-grip took hold, when we had fields full of the best grass hay and alfalfa in two states, and when we guaranteed to get at least two full cuts and more often three, provided we could dodge the monsoonal weather. On this day, with a full crew of us working (yes, me, too, including all the labor of lifting and hauling and stacking bales), we very nearly managed it. At the time that Wings shot these photos, I was, if memory serves, standing on the back of the flatbed, throwing the last load of bales down to him and ad couple of other guys who were stacking them in the hay bar. The rain began when we had probably some forty bales left to unload, and we were able to get it stored before it got damp. It was, after all, only faint shower, not much more than a sprinkle, and after a day of laboring in temperatures well above ninety degrees, our overheated skin covered in hay dust and sweat, it was welcome anyway.
The rain was gift by then, but the light? The light was medicine.
The three images that will appear in tomorrow’s post are of a piece with this one, taken at almost the same moment, from very nearly the same spot but facing in the opposite direction. Wings captured this one facing west, and it is unretouched in any way: the gold and amber, coral and copper, crimson and scarlet, mulberry and plum were all the actual shades of the sunset sky, a common enough sight here in monsoon season, but vanishingly rare these days.
And on this day, when the drought has seemed to sink its teeth ever deeper and our fear is that hope for tomorrow, or for the weekend’s predicted rain, will be as vain as the bleakest of lost causes, it gives us something to anticipate. No, we may not be granted it this year . . . but then again, the spirits might look favorably upon us, and upon the land.
For now, the clouds gather, and the work proceeds apace. Whatever the circumstances of climate and weather, the work, and the need for it, is the one constant in our lives. But for this day, at least, we feel an extra dash of hope that has not been present lately: for warming winds and summer spirits and the medicine found in the light of sun and storm.
~ Aji
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