EARTH VISIONS

Copyright 2010, Melissa C. Reardon, on all text and images, all rights reserved.

Melissa Reardon
Voice Catchers - 2008 Release

The clouds had been floating gently across the sky all day. Some were stretched to their limit, others were small and puffy. They gave up no raindrops as they sailed across the vibrant blue skies. Yet the birds chirped in the ponderosas, chipmunks scuttled across the pine forest floor and lizards languished on the cool rocks along the creek banks. A slight cooling breeze began to lift the branches of the trees and gently coaxed the grass sideways, but when it ceased, the heavy heat rested again upon the earth. As the hot day plodded along, the air became listless, oppressive, even suffocating. Except for the breeze playing about in the tree tops and the quiet chuckling of the creek, the day became silent and still.

By the end of the afternoon, the clouds had flourished, blossoming in the hot humid sky. Growing slowly, they merged with each other, becoming swollen stanchions of steam and energy, blocking their blue background. Cloudy hands grasped at each other under the forging towers of thunderheads. The setting sun flickered among the clouds bringing hues of rusts, reds and purples to their heavenly underbellies. Color was flung across the sky in the death throes of the day while the earth waited. Then the air no longer stirred, but became so dense, it felt as if it could be cut into tiny pieces.

With the very last rays of sunlight, the air began to move in strong short bursts, whirling dust into tiny parched tornadoes that blew helpless tumbleweeds across the sagebrush landscape. Distant rumblings could be heard in the darkening horizon as the sky turned from grey to starless black. Flashes of light danced across the turbulent skyline, illuminating the large silhouettes of painted hills as they stood fast against the storm. Moving closer, its energy crackled across the desert.

The atmosphere was broken by large raindrops--plopping into the dust, breaking onto sun warmed rocks, slapping the leaves of the evening primrose while it rolled down the stalks of desert sage. The black sky exploded with dangerous powerful fingers of thunderbolts as they reached across the lake and pronounced their warning of the storm's inevitable approach.

The air swirled about the oak groves, while menacing tendrils of electricity grabbed the sky in both desperation and domination, turning the evening clouds an eerie pink, purple and grey. And the earth trembled beneath them. Thunder rattled and boomed its war cry and the lightning just kept on dancing to its music. Rain poured down from the heavens, saturating the thirsty soil, quenching its late summer thirst as small rivulets of storm water moved down the withered hills. Ozone and sulphur filled the air with a mystical aroma, mingling with the refreshing scent of wet lava rock, white sage and cleansing juniper.

The storm moved slowly across the beaten skyline for what seemed like hours, demanding full attention, always threatening instant destruction. After an earth shattering boom, a flickering tentacle touched a pine tree, instantly setting it aflame. Fire danced back along the tentacle's course, lighting up the hillside. The tempest moved on to pummel against a mountain range, looming in the distance. As it took its leave, flickers of light faded beyond the horizon, thunder became just quiet muttering and then there was silence. The clouds parted to reveal the sparkling stars of the clean evening sky while the owl made its stealthy journey through the pine trees to start his evening hunt...as if nothing had ever happened at all.