MAUI SUNRISE

6:10 a.m., late winter, 2010
The moon is a little fingernail in the eastern sky. I map the constellation overhead, a descending zigzag of blurry stars. The horizon below, framed by two palms and a row of christmas berry trees, is flat and horizontal, a zen line. The sky is layered like ice cream, deep dusky blue for the ocean layer, fluffy light blue filling. Above, lava black clouds. I await.
It's cold. I'm shivering. This is winter, after all. I go get a blanket.
Orange creamsicle ice cream is now spread out--"ono-licious!"--behind the lava clouds which have now become the same dusky purple as the ocean below, but with white primer mixed in so that's it's chalky. The shape of the middle cloud is like an Asian hut with a roof: a yurt. One solitary bird flies. Then the clouds start to separate from the sea--a thin line of mixed mango and chalky blue dust. The clear horizontal line of the ocean is constant, a constance, a permanence that gives the grounding peace that only horizontal lines can.
Now the ocean's texture begins to be visible. Blue frog-back. The moon sliver remains in the same place, but the stars are all gone, replaced by a Renaissance-blue sky with puffs of slow but steadily moving clouds, white with gray rouge. Now the lower horizon below is brighter, but all forms keep their places. Pale old yellow, a wash of Chinese sky-silk. A thin veil of soft sheer palest grey is held gently across the whole horizon: a band of sheer Indian silk chiffon held taut against the sky masking the clouds behind. Below the still blue sea. The central charcoal hut-cloud never leaves me. The Renaissance-painting clouds that passed below the moon sliver are now gone. The scene lightens, but so gradually, like a computer screen image that has slightly less power.
It feels fresh and old at the same time. Like me.
I have water and sky, air and wind. I have everything I need.
6:41 a.m. Now it's clear and light enough out that other people will be getting up. Now I'll have to work.
I look at the Chinese cloud-hut: it's still there but now it has windows. Wherever I go, there I'll be. Wherever I am, I am home on this earth. I have my hut. I have my sky-hut.