I’ll never forget a moment in my college years when I was exclaiming over a particularly vivid Houston sunset. A friend remarked, “You know that’s because of pollution, right?” I probably responded with an exasperated sigh — so much for the romance of natural beauty! — but of course she was right.

Last week we enjoyed color-suffused skies here in Austin thanks to dust blown all the way from the Sahara Desert in Africa. I know it’s just dirt in the air, but in my imagining it floats here from undulating, tawny dunes right out of The English Patient. Still a romantic at heart. And why not? Just look at the colors that blossom from low sunlight beaming through wayward desert dust.

I admired the skies again a few days later — this time a golden sunrise and the sinuous silhouettes of live oaks reflected in an office building’s windows. As a cool counterpoint in the foreground, silvery blue agaves add their own sinuous, serrated-leaved echo.

Air pollution. Erosion. Prosaic office parks. You never know when something undesirable will give rise to something beautiful. Keep your eyes open, friends.

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