Earth and Sky

The oxide colors mix with everything on the mountain: with soils and rocks; and leaching into the lichens that draw the rust oranges out from the earth. The ground up here is warm and magnetic, even as the cold winds pour over the sides of the ridges, drying up the moisture of the last snow-- dry as a painted desert. I rest my eyes on the cool sky and waters of the inlet 4000' below, wondering whether this beauty is just a passing mood. Even the glittering feldspar crystals blind my eye in the bright sunlight, from blackened talus with sparkling touches of high noon sun. I retreat again to the cool lavenders and blue-greens further out in a vast valley space. The softness of distance reveals hidden valleys, smudged in the haze, where in layered nurseries, groups of thunderheads begin to rise and gather. Around and below are the valleys of Peters Creek to the south and Matanuska to the north: they are like hollowed cups of air and moisture, where on updrafts the eagle spirals into the sky. Up here I feel like a bird too, able to see the broad mansions of the earth through a cushion of air. Here, the human spirit can fly and join with the elements; perhaps, in rare moments, touch the outer fringes of immortality.