oil in Florida

all see in faith

It must have been the storm that woke me, but until I kicked off my flip flops and the wet sand gave way beneath my feet I didn't know it had even rained.

Even before dawn, the thought was waiting for me as I arose from a dream.  I was cocooned warm beneath the blankets of my mother's bed. Only after I had changed and ridden my bicycle across town, only as I descended the stairs and looked upon eternity did I realize I was awake.  

I had heard whisperings in town about the immense ships scouring the surface of the Gulf in the night. Be sure not to tell the tourists. And there, at the thirteenth hour, were two barges in a suspicious rendezvous, their orange, electric light the only indicator of the horizon. Their fabricated watts were notably less ethereal than the clouds which slowly boiled over one another in a tumultuous purple-black. It was impossible, aside from the vessels, to distinguish the ocean from the heavens and the desire to both duck and leap battled in my being. I gave in to each alternately, to be fair.

As the sun rose, the tops of the clouds appeared as tip of icebergs foretelling the magnificence that would grow downward into the shadows of the darkest cerulean sky. My skin glowed a white gray and, as I dropped my head backwards to take it all in, I held my breath knowing I must be under water. I kept spinning around and around as I tried to keep it all in my eyes. I tried to be completely present, consciously present, and then chastised myself for not being able to see the entire sky at once.
The light of the morning appeared over the rooftops formed into beams and rays aiming high as if the sun were hidden behind stage props, so blinding that the clouds as performers seemed to radiate their own spark instead of reflecting that of the source.
As the clandestine ships sailed away from one another trying to appear nonchalant, I could hardly make out their glow in the haze of the milky colors that early morning brings. 

Less alive, I awoke for the day.