Blue Skies

Post-Hurricane Arthur, the Northeast is cleansed and pure, evidenced by the low humidity and bright blue skies.  Yesterday was glorious, and the drive to Bethel Woods on Route 97 along the Delaware, top-down, was the kind of thing that makes me glad to be alive.  Today is a carbon copy, and although I am not going anywhere, the skies over my house and property have me in a constant state of looking upward.  Literally and figuratively.

The tune in my head is the Allman Brothers' Blue Sky.  The lyrics don't knock me out, unless, of course, I am headed to Carolina and my beloved Outer Banks.  I'm not.  But the happy jauntiness of the song is a feel-good fix.  So it can stay there, repeating in my head, where I have stored the very best music.

Of course, it is easy to love the sky when taking in its azure beauty is akin to popping a happy pill.  But the sky has many moods, and there is merit in loving them all.  There's a line from Desperado, an old Eagles' song, that I have always found compelling:

Don't your feet get cold in the winter time?
The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine.
It's hard to tell the night time from the day. 

There is no word for a color in those lines, but you can see it, can't you?  You can feel it, too.  We've all been there.

But today, the sky is blue.  I am reminded of a poem by David Ignatow, of the same title:


The Sky Is Blue

Put things in their place,

My mother shouts. I am looking

Out the window, my plastic soldier

At my feet. The sky is blue

And empty. In it floats

The roof across the street.

What place, I ask her.