Turning Grey Skies Blue

The sky hangs heavy with clouds as you make your way along a narrow wooden boardwalk winding through the wetlands. Towering cypress trees rise from the dark water, their enormous trunks surrounded by tangled roots and curtains of Spanish moss. The air is cool and damp, carrying the fresh scent of cypress, pine, and distant saltwater on the breeze.

Beneath the boardwalk, the water moves almost imperceptibly. Fallen leaves drift between the roots, while patches of sunlight struggle through the thick canopy overhead. Somewhere among the reeds, a frog croaks, answered by the soft rustling of wings deeper in the trees.

You stop where the boardwalk ends at a small clearing overlooking the water. Beyond the cypress grove, the wetlands stretch toward a distant coastline, where the wind carries hints of sea salt and weathered cedar. The clouds begin to shift, and a thin ribbon of sunlight spills across the water, illuminating the pale blossoms growing along the muddy banks.

A sudden, piercing cry echoes overhead.

You look up just as a bald eagle emerges from the treetops, its enormous wings spread wide against the grey sky. It glides low over the water, its reflection passing across the rippling surface before it rises toward the open air.

For a moment, everything seems to grow still.

The eagle circles once above the clearing, catching an invisible current that carries it higher. Sunlight breaks through the clouds, warming the tops of the cypress trees and turning the dark water a brilliant shade of blue.

You remain at the edge of the boardwalk, watching the eagle disappear into the distance as the last of the morning clouds drift toward the sea.