Flying into Guatemala, clouds are being
launched into the sky from the depths of the grey-blue Atlantic. They
are pulling the sea up their wide columns. Upon reaching the
troposphere, the thick columns mushroom out.
The sun is low and fresh. A yellow sun
and growing in strength, second by second. Though the sun's energy is
strong and magnificent, it is not the object of my eye.
Where am I?
I stepped into this room from a place
that I knew—of squares and right angles—but it has now taken me
to a strange and alien jungle, one not of trees and green and smells
of earth and life.
I have seen 2,000 year old Sequoias,
massive trees that are tall but not lanky. Here I am faced by a
forest of things much older (or are they much younger?), and much
more impressive. This cloud forest, one without definite origins, one
that must have crept in during the night. I can sense the power of
these creatures. I know their strength comes from the most powerful
and timeless forces on our earth: the sun and the sea. Their great
energy is evident in their size and the mass of their vaporous but
somehow solid bodies. They stand on common ground, blue and grey, not
green and brown.
I catch glimpses of the water below and
it forms a vast floor. I can see it is feeding these giants. It is as
shadowed and nuanced as most things are from six feet away. We are
29,994 further out, and it still looks as rich and detailed as a
forest floor—one filled with tracks and detritus of the fallen,
upon which plants still alive may grow stronger.
In this forest of clouds, with their
powerful blue trunks and grey mushroom tops, if I were not in an
aluminum tube looking through a piece of clear plastic, I'm quite
sure I'd hear a quiet song on the air, deep and ancient.
The light fills all the gaps loudly,
not tip-toeing, but blazing through breaches of the canopy, and if it
makes it to the forest floor it does not stay there. Instead,
reflecting off the water, its glittering light sears my eyes.
Blinded, I look away. It is magnificent.
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