It’s safe to say that a great painter of seascapes also has to be
     a great painter of the sky, as demonstrated by Lane’s canvases
depicting Gloucester Harbor, of which there are many, but one
     in particular makes his aptitude for capturing the evanescence of

the air above water abundantly clear. Here, it’s late afternoon
    or early evening, tide low, weedy stones along the shore
just visible through the surface, two fishermen with their backs
     turned to the viewer, one in blue with a fishing pole and the other

lumbering in red, possibly hauling a barrel off, or onto, the rowboat
     hurled up onto, or among, the docks. Exactly when or where or what
everything is and what it’s doing isn’t as definitive as the overall
    impression, which is of a precariously pale pink hovering over all

the abovementioned, and more: six discernible ships in the harbor,
     others on the horizon, Eastern Point a sliver in the distance
and in the center of it all, but to the left, the tiny Ten Pound Island
     with the lighthouse keeper’s dwelling anchored to it like a barnacle  

as the light rose haze feathers into an analogous shade of blue
     the way the mind does when a hardship loosens, or in the pause
after long exertion, the heaviness of everything subsiding even slightly
     briefly exciting the pieces of oneself into a single joyous vapor.