The Balm of Night

The other night it was warm and breezy. The most perfect balm of temperature and dew point.

We walked out through the dappled moonlit woods to watch the clouds blow by from the quiet road. Then a raccoon went crazy where the road turns, tearing up the silence of night, and we headed back to the house.

The Tread Of Time

The night is dark but for the power company's safety lamp. It is dangerously cold near, below, or well below zero. The wind blows, not a howling, but a deep woooh through the trees. The whimpering of the iron porch rocker transcends walls, its complaint in every room. If you stare into the night, nose chilled by the cold relay of a double-paned window, you will see little, if anything, but the sodium lamp's sickly orange-yellow glow cast onto the woods and snow. Turn out the lights and sleep. Only daylight brings the ghostly imprint of Disney's dark dispatch, the tread of time debossed into crystalline water, our drive the Grauman's of faunal drama.

Our porch steps a barrier -for now.

A few nights ago there was a radical fog.