shape and color

[mnaz]

The flat blue ocean has a constant twelve-mile horizon, while the desert ocean can take you up a two thousand foot arc before you catch the trick-- high enough and you might catch a hundred mile view. I'll take a two thousand foot arc over a thirty foot swell, but the oceans all share wonder, obsession, mystery-- the only things able to fill so much open space.

The blue ocean stacks miles of itself on itself, inexplicably home to strange minions at the bottom, many still unknown. They rely on the lake of fire boiling up through cracks in the sea floor-- vibrant life, where only dark, cold crushing pressure should exist. A camera sent to such depths reveals scenes not unlike desert dawn, if shaded a bit differently-- spiky needles, rock and intensity.

Maybe I'll be a rock tapper when this is over; I'll need a job when they force me to surrender. But for now: rock, sky, and how they're painted. Shape and color. And desert color is worlds apart; it's not your imagination. And why is that?

It's because air itself is colored, due to its actions on sunlight. Imagine that. The sky shows blue light, its weaker rays refracted in upper strata dust. Powder-blue might be the only desert color at high noon. It's hard to find color in either too much or too little light-- glare or gloom. Yet colors find their realms. Dry air has more reddish light-- the stronger rays that pierce outer layers and refract closer to earth. Dry air shows fire-gold even in cold, while moist, pregnant air shows cooler shades, more bluish, like an alpine valley's purple chill.

It's not just refraction, but reflection too. Heavy dust paints air directly, like that Providence Range photo I shot in fifty-knot gusts-- its slopes in a weird topaz veil, an impressionistic painting. And earth reflects its own hues-- you can see rock here! From glare to fire on solar whims, and deep, sharp shadow contrasts, it is this range of arid light that gives the desert its power.

I expected raw shape, but color surprised me. It emerged in even the sparsest deserts, where just a few hours before at the peak of glare a lone witness stopped to empty the psychic trash and fix his eyes in bright dust. They said it's a wasteland, a blank place, a good place to dump things, yet color finds it like violet shadows on sand, or capricious subtle pinks and yellows of a desert sky. Bland ridges turn shades of olive, plum, lilac, sapphire, terra cotta and copper as the sun arcs, even hot iron red in peaks of heat.

[creativesoul]

ahhh yes you are the traveler- thru all doors- like this piece-

[mnaz]

thanks, creativesoul. damn, it has been quite a journey..