There is no blue today.
Yet.
Yesterday’s forecast snow held off until late in the evening, and overnight produced only a dusting; the real weather began with the dawn. Even so, it won’t last; come afternoon, sun and will have burned off and blown out the clouds to reveal a lazuli sky, and the remnant diamond dust upon the branches will vanish into the earth, drop by drop.
It’s one of the great gifts of this place: Here at Red Willow, no matter the weather, we can be always confident of the blue beyond the storm.
Of course, there is blue, and there is cobalt; there are snowflakes, and there are diamonds. Wings captured the image above exactly one week ago, unfiltered and unretouched: the spare and slender limbs of a staghorn sumac, beaded with white and shimmering in the light. The staghorn is not native to Northern New Mexico, though it thrives here; it is, on the other hand, indigenous to my own homelands, the woodlands far to the north and east. There are, however, sumac species that are native to this area, and I suspect that when he chose it twenty or so years ago, he was misinformed by the seller as to its actual identity. Since it turned out to be a staghorn, it stands solo, but it leafs beautifully, its “staghorns” robing themselves in scarlet in autumn . . . and it is a magnet for the bejeweling crystalline beauty of winter.
The weeping willows, on the other hand, are very much native.
These are not, of course, the willows that give this place its name: Those are the shrublike red willows — a relative, yes, but of a very different form and shape. The vastly larger, more independent weeping willow tends to be found singly, and manifests as an ordinary tree rather than a shrub, with a tall rugged trunk branching out into numerous limbs with long, thin, flexible ends.
In winter, they turn into pure magic, a botanical snow globe of sorts: Snow, ice, and frost cling to the branches, already weighted and inclined to bend toward the earth, creating a spangled dome-like effect. Stand underneath, as Wings has done here, and it feels as though you are being showered with diamonds, enfolded into a 360-degree beaded curtain of sparkling gems.
And when the clouds clear off and the sun cast its gaze upon them in the morning, the contrast with the background sky turns its blue positively electric — a pure, archetypal blue, an impossibly perfect exemplar of word and color at once.
But the blues that succeed the storm are not alone here, not so long as there is snow on the ground.
It is another gift of place, this possibility of an earth near as blue as the sky. The blue inhabits the shadows, of course — fitting, as a reflection, a reverse image, of what the heavens hold on offer. These two posts — ancient, dried, lightly spiraled — stand like gnarled gray sentries at the front of our land, shortened limbs stretched out less in defense than in seeming supplication. In daylight they are weathered and gray, but cast their shadows upon the snow, and their projected selves turn the midnight blue of storm and sea.
Today, the blues will be less intense, clouded by the dust a nascent ground blizzard, whirlwinds eddying up and down and across its surface at the whim of a trickster north wind. Even so, in this place beneath a vaulted high-desert sky, we have the luxury of knowing that the blues will return in force.
Here at Red Willow, there will be, always, the blue beyond the storm.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
