Some Prose from a Friend
A YOUNG man (he's my age) I met in Bahia de Los Angeles on our last trip recently retired and has "lettered" in English Lit. While we whiled away the
days at Camp Gecko we shared our wanna-be writings. His posting name is Terence Austin and he just sent me this poem, a reflection on life along the
shores of Bahia de Los Angeles. I hope you enjoy it.
Blue
The first impression is blue. I drove across about 350 clicks of high, dry country from the pacific coast, some green to start with, but mainly all
tans, browns, whites and grays, all the colors of dirt and rock you could imagine, and far vistas, and worrying about gas, and hot, a wild land, and
at the end looking at a horizon farther away than it should be, if my interpretation of the distance still to go was correct, and I came over a rise
and there was BLUE, the bay, Bahia de Los Angeles on the sea of Cortez, like a surprise, wide and blue and hitting me with a sensual thump of blue, a
rich deep color that was almost audible, a color like a touch, like the first touch of a woman that hits you dead center in your soul. Wowee Zowee.
That's blue, I'd have to say (I said).
That farther horizon that I thought was still distance to travel was actually the ridge line of the big island, Isla Angel de la Guarda, across the
bay and then further, across the channel, Canal de Ballenas, ten miles of further blue.
But first was the near blue. On that first day of stunning blue it was still not just all one blue, there were wind and wave patterns of color, and
the islands and points giving the bay it's shape, but it was all one variegated blue. Various, but all blue. Much bluer than even a Colorado October
sky. Blue! Damn.
I've spent a few months since then watching that blue, watching the bay. I've seen it go grey, and green, and dark colors that almost seem malevolent
in the west and north wind, but they,re all shades of blue nevertheless. And mostly it's blue shades of blue, rich and warm and speaking to me closer
than people do... Light and dark and strange and solid and wild. All shades of blue.
In the dark of night, watching the stars instead of the water, the bay is still there under it all, a subliminal blue; and when the eastern ridges
start to lighten above the bay, the water shows it's faint small shade of blue. And in the early calm dawn the smooth surface is almost silver, but
watching the black silhouettes of the pelicans and gulls and terns, you see it is a silver blue.
Even when the sun starts climbing over the ridges above La Mona (Rincon), it's light banging off a cloud, and your mind gets blown with the red,
copper, brass, gold, and the intense yellow white of the sun's direct reflection that's more a light than a color, you still see it's all surrounded
with blue. And on calm mornings the whole bay can be a glassy surface of orangey colors that are more vivid because of the contrasting blue, a subtle
contrast, but a contrast...but subtle. Sometimes it's so subtle, if you didn't have better sense, you'd hardly even be amazed.
And then the morning breeze ruffles the water so it seems to be moving away from you and the surface is darker blue against lighter blue, not patterns
really, but still a mix of separate colors. And sometime along in there there is sunlight and birds standing guard on the rocks along the shore and
some gulls poking around, their white smooth heads lit up on one side and then a patrol of Mergansers flying purposefully south or north along the bay
like P-38's looking for unlucky Mitsubishi intruders, but only about six inches above the water, and they're almost black against almost a muted blue.
And the land breeze gets going pretty steady and then the whole bay becomes a slowly moving rippled light blue, sometimes with a tone of grey to it
(but not today), and then far out there by the inner islands the blue horizon of water stops against the hazy line of the big island, pale blue
against the paler sky that hardly seems blue at all. But it is. Blue that is...
You can get dazzled by the glitter of the sun on the water if the sound of a whale's blow pulls your eye that way before you can think. A long deep
authoritative sound, not mistakable for the sound of dolphins at all. And you hear it again and fix the direction by ear and then you happen to be
looking right at it when the big plume of white vapor blasts out against the blue water and then the black whale's back rolls a long time in your
sight. Long if you've been used to watching dolphins porpoise by. It's so big it's exciting, and you watch ahead of the last sighting, trying to
estimate the distance of a whale's breath, and see it again, the white blow of vapor and the smooth black slide of the whale's back against the water,
all in the blue bay... Wow.
It gets later in the morning, even though I'm sitting around doing nothin, my major occupation on this bay, and there's a time when the land breeze
begins to change to the sea breeze. Most of the wind can die at that time and the bugs come out and make me glad I've put screens on the windows of
my truck. The wind and the calm mix on the surface of the bay and there are again patterns of color and wind on the water. The early morning calm
has changed from silver blue to blue silver and the patches of windy water are blue blue, and there are swirls of shape and color on the water a mile
long and more, and all blue, and seemingly newly invented kinds of blue at that. Sometimes the water moves in many different directions at once too,
as the undecided wind moves it around in the beautiful way of the natural world. This bay might be the essence of art if men had made it, it's damned
sure what art would like to be.
And sometimes there's no wind, no wind at all for awhile, and the whole bay turns almost a powder blue, except for being glassy, and there's no
difference at all then between the color of the sky and the color of the sea. And then there'll be a tiny thin line of dark blue, way out, and it
means there's wind out there, and probably soon it'll be coming in, sea to land. And the line gets wider, and closer, and there start being silvers
and blues on the water again, darker patches and lighter patches and puffs of wind and then they start to grow to a breeze.
And the sea breeze does take over, and usually blows the bugs away, and some days seems like it figures to just go ahead and blow the truck away too,
and you'd better have your camp weighted down or tied down or get used to chasing everything or just wave it all bye-bye. Did I mention the wind?
It's blue, too, and not stopping, not even...
And that sea breeze brings in the waves, green here close to the shore, but far out there, 2 or 3 miles, where the white caps contrast to the water,
it's deep deep blue, and you can stand there and face into it and feel like you're flying, like you're lifted from the earth, feel like the flow of
the wind is the flow of the breath in your body and the blue color is the exalted blue of your own exalted soul. (yeah, yeah, yeah!)
And the afternoon goes on, and often mellows as it gets later and for along time it's just blue waves and blue water and blue distance, and islands
out there and they look like they're floating and in the distances between there and here the terns are banging the water and the pelicans are making
huge splashes when they kamikaze into the water with apparent total abandon. The ospreys do their afternoon cruise, stooping to snatch fish from the
waves, birds of the talon; but the terns hit the water and the damn pelicans crash into it as if the water itself is the target. BANG! SPLASH! Big
splash!
But the evening does come down, and then the colors of the sky go berserk sometimes, like the dawn did, crazed and maniacal soft elegant explosions of
blazing colors, red and purple and you name it, but reflected in the waters and for a time, coloring the waters of the blue bay. But they fade, those
flames, and as they fade to peace, to quietness, we are left with the blue serenity of the approach of the night, the blue night of the moon on the
water. The wind can fade to stillness, or almost, and then the contemplative turn of our minds becomes just a reflection of the color of the bay.
Blue.
The waves keep coming for awhile after the wind calms, but the white caps subside, and the green at the shore subsides to blue, and the light here on
the land subsides, slowing down to blue as the sun drops behind the ridge. The bay seems brighter then for awhile, still lit up while we fall into
shadows, and the far islands light up in their colors of earth while the water becomes a softer blue, if still like a living light, but a softer
living light. Blue.
The color pales a bit as the light fades...Fades? The light doesn't fade, it changes. Changes to the hues of the night, and this particular night
will entertain us with a moon gliding towards the full. As the sun leaves the sky, the moon climbs up, and the land brightens under it's light.
Looking out after dark I see a magic kind of day. The salt cedars cast deep shadows underneath and you can walk around as if cloaked by darkness but
still see everything. It all seems secret somehow, but it is the secrecy of a revelation, as if the moonlight can tell you something the daylight
cannot.
And the sea brightens too, glittering in the pale light, glittering palest blue. In this light, the light of a 3/4 moon, the land and sea, the bay,
are closer in color than in the earlier part of the afternoon, in the sun. It's ghostly. It's beyond beautiful. Like a revelation. The moon, the
sea, and my eye, my feet in the soft sand even, are no longer separate things, separate feelings. The cool soft touch on my feet, of the sand, and on
my eye, of the blue ridges far around, and the sea of course, a color to my eye, blue, a feeling to my spirit, expansive, and experience to my mind,
all is blue. The cool soft sound and feeling of the smooth small waves on the shore, the water calm, no ruffles on the surface, though the waves
still come in, (it is a bay, a sea, after all, not a lake, nothing small about this place) this blue night is like a dream, making me truly alive, a
blue electric dream that lets my sore sad small self subside and calls my magic total crazy self arise arise alive in the blue night, the blue
electric sea, the blue electric dream, the blue blue night, electric life, beautiful electric alive. Blue.
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