One Crater, Two Colors

From high above the interior, Polly looked down into a single enormous crater, more than twenty-two thousand years old and wide enough to hold a small town, two lakes, and several farms inside its rim. A thin strip of land crossed the middle, and on either side of it the water was a completely different color, one lake a deep blue, the other a vivid green, as if someone had poured two different oceans into the same bowl.

S velike visine iznad unutrašnjosti Polly je gledala dolje u jedan golemi krater, star više od dvadeset dvije tisuće godina i dovoljno širok da unutar svog ruba primi gradić, dva jezera i nekoliko imanja. Sredinom je prolazio uzak pojas kopna, a sa svake njegove strane voda je bila posve druge boje, jedno jezero duboko plavo, drugo živo zeleno, kao da je netko u istu zdjelu ulio dva različita oceana.

The two lakes are not really separate. A narrow channel under the land bridge connects them, so the water itself is one body. What changes is everything around it. The blue lake is deeper and simply reflects the open sky, while the green lake sits closer to plant-covered slopes and tiny algae, both of which tint its water a rich green instead.

Ta dva jezera zapravo nisu odvojena. Uzak kanal ispod kopnenog mosta povezuje ih, pa je i sama voda jedno tijelo. Mijenja se sve oko nje. Plavo je jezero dublje i jednostavno odražava otvoreno nebo, dok zeleno leži bliže padinama obraslima biljem i sitnim algama, a oboje njegovu vodu boje bogatom zelenom.

Polly flew low along the land bridge that splits the two colors, close enough to see fishing boats resting on one shore and grazing cattle on the low hills above the other. Thick fog rolled in off the ocean and settled inside the crater rim, hiding first the green lake, then the blue, until only the bridge between them stayed visible.

Polly je nisko letjela duž kopnenog mosta koji dijeli te dvije boje, dovoljno blizu da vidi ribarske brodice na jednoj obali i stoku na ispaši na niskim brežuljcima iznad druge. Gusta se magla dovaljala s oceana i spustila unutar ruba kratera, skrivajući najprije zeleno jezero, pa onda plavo, dok nije ostao vidljiv samo most između njih.

She perched on the old stone wall of a lookout point and waited for the fog to lift again, in no hurry at all. When it finally thinned, both lakes reappeared at once, blue and green, exactly where she had left them.

Sjela je na stari kameni zid vidikovca i čekala da se magla ponovno digne, nimalo u žurbi. Kad se napokon prorijedila, oba su se jezera pojavila odjednom, plavo i zeleno, točno ondje gdje ih je ostavila.