Words of Evening and Night

The tall brown grass, still crisp with winter's chill, waves in dark outlines against the last red glow of evening. Beneath, the lengthening shoots of spring cuddle in shadows that deepen with the gentle rise and fall of the earth. The few young trees rise eerily among the bending waves and meld with the elder grass.  Numbering as the young, the wiser trees show darkly, the lighter gray of the sky outlining all their branches.  Spring has not yet adorned them in her lively robes.

Even as thoughts of nature beckon and become words on paper, the darker side of twilight descends.  The western glow of evening has turned to a dark murky green.  The moon too, before unnoticed, seems to have grown brighter, but even she seems cold and only makes the whispers of the grass lonelier.  Perhaps if the stars were not veiled the sky would look less empty.

Now the faint drumbeat of the coming night swells swiftly.  Then it thunders in terrible throbs, the dance of night is on, twilight is no more. Yet only nature suspects the magic of its untamed rhythm.  Wild at first, it slowly dwindles into the wind’s plaintive strains.  The awesome terror has yielded to a gentle sadness.  The stars shyly raise the blanket and venture slowly out.  The moon grows less ominous and the few bugs, which dare, play hide-and-seek beneath the moon.

Oh, to climb the starry skies or dance with windy arms and play shadows with a winter moon, to stay all night helping weave the mystic dance of the night.  Instead, I slowly shut the door and go to bed.