Chiaroscuro

CHIAROSCURO(n.) In Lighting or Scenic design (and the Art world), Chiaroscuro means the use of contrasts of light and shade, especially in order to enhance the depiction of character and for general dramatic effect. Many painters are said to be masters of Chiaroscuro (especially Rembrandt, Caravaggio etc.) From the Italian words chiaro 'clear, bright' and oscuro 'dark'. From the Random House Word of the Day website.

Here is a term I ran across again (one I haven't seen since my own days in high school) while making lesson plans for my theater class; but it also fits the contrast in many of our dreams of late, and most recently fits the complementary contrasts in my flight observations: between night flight and day.

In the broadness of day's light,
Man's ambition looks less bold
than when it gleams in the dark.

Here and there
only a thimbleful of human complication
is dumped,
marring the ordered chaos
that is the harmony of the hills.

A landscape for a giant child,
a boy-child
content to roll his grandmother's piecutter
back and forth over a sooty dough.
Haphazard, but consistent.
Back and forth.

And nothing but the putty-threads twining, twisting
making everywhere accessible,
these to show
how much man runs to and fro
in this giant child's world.

But because the strategies of this place
are too great for me to comprehend,
I look up,
and so You lift me.
Far above the view of either man or mountain
up to where we can stand and gaze
across a beach of clouds, one
scattered with basins of blue: the sky.
I looked at the frothing,
the furrowing,
the bubbling...

"You took Peter walking on the water, " I say,
"Now take me walking on the clouds."
And from Your place on that shimmering expanse
You reach out and--without hesitation--
take my hand.

edited to add this verse:
"Sing to God, you kingdoms of the earth...
To Him who rides on the heaven of heavens, which were of old!
Indeed, He sends out His voice, a mighty voice.
Ascribe strength to God;
His excellence is over Israel,
And His strength is in the clouds."