Lucid Blue

We're into that part of the fall where days are bright, sunny, and moderately cool. Not cold, but definitely jacket weather. Dark comes early, and it will come even earlier once the time changes this weekend. Daylight comes slowly in the morning, and I rise early enough that I regularly find the sky dark and star spangled. Then dawn creeps on slowly-- this very moment I can see dark clouds in the eastern sky against a light grey-blue-- and comes the morning.

But somehow what seems most characteristic of this phase of the fall, after Indian summer has fled and the first snowflake has not yet fallen, is the daytime sky. The daytime sky, lucid blue, fleecy clouds scudding to the north of us, and the sun bright enough that being outdoors calls for sunglasses in November. Lucid blue skies, an azure of stunning clarity and depth: well did the prophets of old write of the sapphire underneath the throne of God.