online: 29 august 2011 modified: 28 august 2011 28 august 2011 unusual sunset
below cloud
....looking south east i see a flat grey cloud beneath which the setting sun is shining horizontally as it illuminates treetops and rooftops in clear yellow light... and looking north west i see the same cloud... beneath which sunlight is illuminating again roof tops, and a nearby tree, in bright light.... and the light is illuminating gossamer threads on the tree, and also sparse rain, dropping vertically.... there may well be a rainbow above but i cannot see the whole sky from indoors...
...while i wrote that the sun moved closer to setting and the grey cloud appears to have risen slightly to expose a little more pale blue sky at the horizon,..
...now the grey cloud has risen further and has rapidly dissolved itself into small pieces of pink cloud and the tree tops are almost in shadow...
....now the north west horizon is masking the sun and the sky is not dark grey but pale blue with shrinking pink cloudlets... and there are no raindrops and the tree near my door is in shadow so no gossamer can be seen any more...
...these unexpected scenes in the vast light-show we inhabit each day are i suppose mostly hidden by our pre-occupations and by our anatomies and our houses... and also by the many trees which exist in our cities and suburbs and villages... though some of us who live on the coast may be able to see sunrises or sunsets across water... and those who dwell on flat fields or flat deserts can see the whole sky while looking horizontally...
...it is about twenty minutes since i began this writing and now the sky has changed from pink and pale blue to bluey grey all over... and all below is in half-shadow or penumbra... the street lights have switched themselves on as we travel into deeper shadow of the earth... and i feel glad to have added this fragment to the collective record of the sky and the earth and what next...
...now in the electric lights of this room... and in the light of the screens of a handheld and a laptop... i look away from these fragments of sky to perform the quiet rituals of text-editing and putting-online of these words... in this writing-place... public...
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