by Stephen Alexander

Created on: February 18, 2010

Cerulean Skies - Azure Seas

After nearly two weeks of inclement weather, here on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the skies this week broke clear and blue. The formerly raging seas, tended to tranquility heretofore unseen for nigh on a fortnight. Gone were the tumultuous seas, replaced now with waters of a near lake-like composure. The once roaring waves now placidly slipped ashore their amplitude not much more than the wake of a passing boat. This quietude, while of late relatively unseen, was surely more than welcome.

This serenity was the reason I withdrew to this deserted outpost. The gulls seem to share my equanimity. They stand about on the peak of the rooftop, loll about on the beach or simply drift about on the placid surface, bobbing in apparent disregard for anything these calm waters might conceivably have in store. This is exactly how I feel; I share their peace.

The seas are an astoundingly azure, a deepness of blue suggesting sapphires. It is unclear whether the seas reflect the skies cerulean mien or vice versa but it seems not to matter on such a gloriously tranquil day. The intensity of color only deepens the overall quietude and spreads a welcome smile across my weary, weathered face.

This is not to say I do not understand the science involved; (the particles of dust in the atmosphere refract the light rays in such a way as to exhibit the part of the spectrum that is blue, while the clear pelagic waters merely reflect the same.) In my inept way, I was simply making a stab at being the litterateur and failing miserably, I might add.

As I write, angry storm clouds marshal menacingly outside my north-facing kitchen window. Now there is a lovely phrase; I have lived so long in motel rooms or simply been without quarters of my own that being able to say “my kitchen” leaves me with such a cozy, homey feel. These clouds, while no doubt innocent, seem to portend a change in weather, which given my current state does not bode well.

There appears to be a line of demarcation, near to where the recent winter tempests terminated their advance as if they had run into a brick wall. Those storms that buried nearby Washington, D.C. as well as Baltimore, MD beneath record snowfall halted if not precisely at this line than close enough to it to warrant the characterization.

For a while, anyway, leave me to enjoy this tranquility, let not the forces of weather find expression against this modest idyll. Let me enjoy this brief clemency, at least for one more day. Winter will return with a vengeful wrath, of this I am sure but for now leave me to pretend it is spring and clear the skies of any untoward formations; this, I hasten to implore.

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