Ode to the Sky VII

Wow! How time flies when you are planning your next few posts! Gosh, I must say that I’m amazed that we could get this far with our series of Odes to the Sky, and trust me there’ll be more to come in future! As I told my friends on the WFR Team : The sky has been shared by beings for millions of years, human and otherwise, and even beyond our beautiful blue planet, there is beauty. Beauty that only an artist can create. And when photography meets technology, a riot of wonders takes place, filling the soul as it has never been filled before. Here is a mix of digital art, poetry, prose and photography about the ancient, distant sky.

So yes viewers, this ode is a package in itself! Just sit back….and enjoy.

So this particular post shows off the differences in art today, and how diverse it is. The difference between reality and fantasy has been blurred thanks to digital art software. Amazing photographers capture moments no painter can ever dream of capturing with his brush or graphic tablet. Writers live to capture life and feeling in their words. And, when the feeling is love, and when love is for the vast immortal roof above all mankind, well…:)

Image credits go to Christos Lamprianidis: http://chris-       lamprianidis.deviantart.com/art/Not-of-this-earth-390429908 and was used with his direct permission.

Or else, check out more at-http://www.christos-lamprianidis.gr/

Now when Dawn in robe of saffron was hastening from the streams of Oceanus, to bring light to mortals and immortals, Thetis reached the ships with the armor that the god had given her.
—Iliad xix.1
But soon as early Dawn appeared, the rosy-fingered, then gathered the folk about the pyre of glorious Hector.
—Iliad xxiv.776

The Iliad, by Homer

Image credits go to: http://taenadoman.deviantart.com/art/Blue-Yonder-376824124

and was used with her direct permission

Poem by: Vasika Udurawane

“BIRD OF PEACE”

The light shone

Bright in our eyes,

Bringing forth wonders!

The Savior had heard me,

My prayers ringing hard,

Like bells from eons ago,

The Lord descends as a being of flight,

Descends as a Bird of Peace and Right,

For the world He heals with angelic eyes,

From wild blue yonder,

To heart of mine.

Image credits go to myself, Vasika Udurawane: http://vasix.deviantart.com/art/Utahraptor- ostrommaysorum-392428724 and will not be used without my direct permission

Prose by: Vasika Udurawane

“THOUGHTS OF A RAPTOR”

Ophelia flexed her muscular limbs once more, cramped from siting in her favorite hole in the deep snow that covered the once-leaf-strewn floor of the birch forest. Her orange eyes were like fires against the cold darkness that was all around her.  And she wondered how she knew it too…had some primal force more powerful and omniscient in this forest than herself, stuck into her mind that she should know the seasons back to front? Or had she somehow got it into her head that winter, while hard, was still radiant in all its hues?

The goddess of the forests for years and years, Ophelia prided herself as the taker of all life but every time she looked at the glory around her….she felt less powerful. Was there something above her head that was by far stronger than the eighty-foot behemoths she sometimes hunted? Something that could strike her down with a mere breath, fearing neither her curved claws nor her brutal, snapping jaws?

Walking onward, and stifling a yawn, Ophelia paused.

There was fire in the skies around her.

The vermilion richness of the mountainous clouds around her seemed to caress her senses as she gazed out into the countryside. This was home, this was the power around her. In her mind, Ophelia heard herself hiss in laughter….in laughter at the things she would never ever know.

                                                              
                                                                      

                                                       Image credits go to: Marc Adamus

                     (http://www.marcadamus.com/) and has been used with his direct permission.

-in Ogilive, Yukon Territory

Poem by: Shailendree Wickrama Adittiya

“FLAME-HUED MEMORIES”

As he held the king coconut

Against the orange skies

He was reminded of his

Little sister

The same shade of orange

She had loved to wear

Dresses and hair bands

So bright

Yet so simple

That same orange,

He had later seen

In the midst of the fire

That burned the corpse

As he said good bye to his sister

For the very last time

He fought away the tears

As the orange reminded him

Of what once was

Of what had been snatched away

From him

She had been just another number

Just another victim of war

And yet,

He knew it wasn’t just

Another death

The country, the world

Had lost an angel

And for that,

The rivers and the heavens

Burned

Image credits go to: Ayodhya Karunaratne

Poem by: Vijini Mallawaarachchi

-in Negombo, Sri Lanka

“ODYSSEY-VOYAGE BEYOND VICINITY”

“Over the sparkling white waves

Towards the mystic oceans

Seeking the never ending horizons

Exploring the deep…

We go on voyage

Under the velvet blue sky

Exploiting mystic dark fathoms

Beyond our eyes…

We go on a ship

Sailing round the world

On seven seas

Passing through storms

Gazing at the deep

Furious waves

We keep on sailing

Till we find sun shine…

Life is like a voyage

Beyond vicinity

This is an amazing

Odyssey of sailing

In oceans of fantasy…”

Image credits go to: Marc Adamus

(http://www.marcadamus.com/) and has been used with his direct permission.

Poem by: Shailendree Wickrama Adittiya

“SWEET TASTES, PINK SKIES”

One held the Bombai motai against the sky

And smiled at the blend of colors
The other looked through the red glass paper

Laughed when her world turned a red pink

Mere kids, they were

Sitting on the wall

Barefoot, clothes dirty

They were happy though

For worries, they had none

Except if the clouds

Tasted sweet too

And so when the world turned over

They didn’t understand why

It seemed like a sheet of grey

Glass paper had been placed before their eyes

Everything, so dark, so eerie

Their smiles slowly faded,

The Bombai motai left untouched

Their place on the wall empty

For like the pink skies

They were gone too”

Image credits go to: Amrita Pieris

Poem by: Shailendree Wickrama Adittiya

-in Jaffna, Sri Lanka

“WHAT’S REALLY WORTH IN LIFE”

                                                    

Love doesn’t make sense,

And neither does hate,

And yet we love,

And we hate

We give life

We take life

And we go on

We think it all makes sense

Why one group is a majority

And the other a minority

It’s all about the numbers

And nothing else

I feel like telling them

But their beliefs

Ah! Can they be changed?

It’s an adult thing,

It seems

To think they are

Never in the wrong

And so they believe

They are better than the rest

And I,

I believe that,

Against the pink-purple skies

Pigs will someday fly