Two Faced?

It is hard to take a bad sunset picture for Skywatch Friday. As the thunderstorms, which have pasted Bend, Oregon, all week are now dissipating, the promise of calmer weather approaches. Yesterday, while fishing in the Deschutes River canyon, a thunderhead, like a giant Brahma bull, stomped its way across the sky and created the most powerful wind and dust cloud I have ever experienced. Caught in this maelstrom of pine cones, and leaves and assorted debris swirling like frenzied swallows to towering heights and tree limbs loudly snapping, I fled to the car just as large hail and bullet-shaped raindrops began pounding the ground. I glanced at the river and watched the wind viciously slice the water and cleaving its surface into deeply plowed furrows over and over again. Such was the power and ferocity of this weather..

Yet, this evening's sunset shows nature's kind gentle face, and majestically hides a split personality. Like living with the moods of an unpredictable spouse, I felt both powerful feelings of love and fear and the necessity to accept nature's caprice. The magical charm of a reddish glowing sunset may be preceded by the terrible wrath of the storm.