A Strange, Blood Orange Sky

If I was sitting

atop the world and eating

a blood orange,

and my

body were a piece

of canvas stretched

to the very edge of things,

and I brought the blood orange,

half-eaten and juice trickling, from my mouth

and took my paintbrush fingertips and smeared

the rest of the blood orange across the canvas

to the imagined place where sky and water meet in me,

would you think it was a waste of orange?

Would you think it was a waste if you saw the

inky skeletons of trees in the marshland storm-scattered at my feet

like discarded brushes or blackened charcoal all cast against the

ever-deepening residue of red-orange flesh

macerated on the canvas in brilliant streaks. Would you?

And the *mist, if you saw the mist the day after the heat, rising

above the low-lying pasture and the marshland by the sea...if you saw the mist

glowing as if it thought itself flame instead of water...would you still think,

Oh shame, what a waste of bloody orange and canvas by that poor artist

who hadn't the sense not to squander their life?

The blood orange, mouth agape sky,

and arms wide open sea; my heart,

one body,

this world...a canvas.

Jill MacCormack

Late last eve, after chores, I gathered myself up, and went to Waterside to see what the falling light the first full day of summer might look and feel like. The sky, post- sunset, was like no other I had ever witnessed there. It was a sky that looked like an inferno in contrast to the sea, pasture and marshland which were so calm in their muted blues and greens. And all was quiet, save the husky, whisk-like call of the Nelson's Sparrow.

It swallowed me whole and though I am home, I have not fully left the place yet.

There was no me and it...everything, everything was blessed by union. Union and the great beauty that only a June night, with its magnificence of late light and softness of air, can render...oh golly...it was a splendor! I am not good at gifting myself with time alone but my whole family was traveling so I headed out solo and what a gift it was.

And yet, despite the wonder last eve, when I see a blood orange sky I think of wildfires and the ravages of war. And with the insufferable heat this week I have to wonder yet again, when will we ever learn to make our peace with each other and with Earth, our beautiful, our only home?

Yours in breath and beauty,

Jill

ps:

*Radiation fog forms in the evening when heat absorbed by the Earth's surface during the day is radiated into the air. As heat is transferred from the ground to the air, water droplets form. Sometimes people use the term “ground fog” to refer to radiation fog.Oct 19, 2023

fog - National Geographic Education

nationalgeographic.org

and

The term “fog” is used when microscopic droplets reduce horizontal visibility at the Earth's surface to less than 1 km, while the term “mist” is used when the droplets do not reduce horizontal visibility to less than 1 km. In practice, mist is considered synonymous with “light fog”.

Fog compared with Mist | International Cloud Atlas https://cloudatlas.wmo.int/en/fog-compared-with-mist.html