April's Wild and Heady Wine

What one is always longing for at this time of the year... a sunset so vivid and powerful and luminous that it brings a shoreline witness to her knees, makes her want to dance (or more likely hobble and lurch) along the beach in sheer full-blown delight, sing and shout her thanks to the Great Round for putting on such an astonishing show.

In April and October, the sun usually goes down in flames over the lake watched by flocks of birds, an appreciative canine and one old hen carrying a camera (me). There is snow in the hills across the water, and there is ice in the center of the lake, but sometimes, just sometimes, there is an echo of eternity too, a moment of kensho or true seeing out there in the wind, a fleeting glimpse into something grand and sacred, timeless and transcendent.

Only a fool would try to paint an April sunset (I'm a fool of course), and even the best of photos seldom captures more than a scrap of the magic in such liminal moments. If these sunsets were potions, they would be heady concoctions - brews rich and sparkling, potent enough to convey wonder and enlightenment and vibrant immortality. An April sunset is fine wine indeed.

This time around I will be viewing April's intense and dusky wonders from a snowdrift and all the gloss before my eyes will be lake and river ice, at least for the next week or two.  Even that cannot dull their technicolor glory or dim their magnificence.

Happy April everyone!