The Pillars of the Gulf of Yurm

Arriving at last, at night, at the edge of the Gulf of Yurm, I stood in silent appreciation of the beautiful spectacle before me. I had read about it's strangeness and unusual beauty, but I was unprepared for such a sight.

The gorgeous cloud formations, red and gold in color, were of the same kind that I experienced just a day before during the storm around the Frutababob trees. But here, they rolled out over the sea like a spectacle of fireworks, ever changing and rolling around in a sensuous display of color, form, and light! The deep and still water sparkled and rippled with every motion and the twinkling of the vast galaxy of stars before me! What beauty and loveliness.

And then, these great strange formations. Trees they are, or so it is said, from many years ago, but composed of mineral matter and formed like great strange slabs of basalt rock, they poke out of the water in a strange display of architecture of the forces of nature. I didn't know quite what to make of them. They stood in grand majesty and repose, like the ruins of a great age gone by when larger animals roamed this world, they reminded me of petrified trees. I was assured, however, that they were still alive. They grow as slowly as stones, embedded deep in the mineral mud of the silts below that feed them and their being submerged only stands as a testament to their having been born before this wide scoop of earth became a sea in later ages. As I passed my hand along their smooth surfaces, I felt their warmth - strange from a mineral form of life, but pleasing as well.

I will rest here for a while and continue my journey beyond the Gulf after finding passage somehow. The locals seem to be most accommodating and friendly, albeit a touch slow. Maybe it has something to do with living next to these great strange living colossi from ages gone by.

- Traveling Uncle Nat. :)

02/14/00