The Melbourne Skyline
A Photo Essay
This is the Melbourne, Docklands, sky at sunset, with one of the raucous, quarrelsome seagulls silhouetted against the panorama of the setting sun.
The sky has always fascinated me. Standing on the ground, looking up and marvelling at a canvas that no painter can replicate, the sky has been a source of endless pleasure to me.
A pleasure so sharp that it is akin to pain.
5.29 in the morning, with the eastern sky beginning to glow, jewel-like, before Brilliance sets in.
This is what I see, lying in bed. Every cloud, every glowing star. Observe, and you can see the tiny pinpricks of light which is one tiny manifestation of brilliance.
4.45 am, and night bids goodbye to day. The world, except for me, a few early commuters, and a couple of sleepy birds tuning up before sunrise, is still, warmly snuggled up in the winter cold of Victoria.
Will the early morning clouds blot out the rising sun?
It was freezing cold, but the moon was full and high in the sky. With chattering teeth and half-frozen fingers, I took this picture, before rushing back into the warmth of my son’s home.
An almost perfect rainbow at Glenbervie, Victoria. A little rain, a little sun: a little joy, a few clouds…
Walking back home, sated after the magnificence of the sunset: CBD, Melbourne, near the Docklands.
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
‘Elegy Written On A Country Churchyard’, Thomas Gray
Storm clouds gather: but the sky holds on to the light from the setting sun.
Sunset: Moonrise
The lowering sky, gloomy, perhaps, at a life cut too short by tragedy. The Shane Warne Memorial, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Life comes full circle.
We are given the power to fly, and soar, like the seagull, and then come down to roost and rest, before it is time for our own souls to fly away, and rest in peace.
And between these two times, phases and spaces, look up into the sky and feel our hearts expand in bliss and ecstasy, wonder and amazement.
Because a space, phase and place with that kind of beauty cannot be worthless, can it?
As one of my favourite poets, Mary Oliver, writes, in her poem, ‘Invitation’
it is a serious thing
just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
