The waters of San Francisco Bay vibrate with life when the sunlight touches its surface. It is as if a giant pen is drawing points of light upon the waters; at different parts of the day, it’s a bright bluish-gray, then in the evenings, a dark hue of gray and green, the vibrating light from the Bay Bridge lends its influence to the surface of the waters giving it character. There are so many gradations of colors every day and night that it’s difficult to describe them; these gradations inspire artists and scientists.

From a vantage point, I feel as if I could touch the waters with my physical fingers through thought and imagination.

I’m whimsically creating San Francisco in the distance through imagination. There are so many Bay Bridges; several of these bridges span different parts of Oakland. One bridge resembles a natural piece of the land with stone walls and trees of many types growing, spruce, pine, oak, and maple; lower coverings are ferns, flowers, moss, and fungus. The city is forested, with tall spire towers; most of the city we know about is gone, and other buildings have the natural world growing upon them, as if created by nature, but they are man-made.

Think of charcoal drawing images of the night, gradations of dark charcoal using an eraser to bring out the bridge, hard lines to delineate details, softer ones for distance, and things hidden by mist. This is what the Bay Bridge looks like at different parts of the evenings, as if nature created a charcoal drawing. In another form of expression, a monochromatic photo vibrantly expresses the mist and light of the bay. It gives the writer descriptions with words in prose and poetry endless descriptions. Its backdrop of magical place through visual and written expressions, the artist’s imagination is the only limitation.

There is no such thing as a better or worse description of the Bay Bridge; all are valid because of the diversity of people’s learned experiences.

Robert J. Matsunaga