At dusk

Monday, April 5, 2010

Have you heard about Moses and the burning bush? That is a story in the Bible from the Book of Exodus of a certain bush that appeared to be on fire... sort of something like this one here, in my back yard.


No, I’m not Moses, nor do I live in Palestine, but at sunset, right at that moment when both celestial bodies, sun and moon, meet for just the slightest moment, you will believe that bushes are burning and that fairies and angels have descended the skies on the wings of dusk…


 




Day and night greet one another wearing a new cloak of light, a sort of mysterious light formed by shadows of crepuscular rays. Sunset's brush strokes stretch across the canvas of air creating an ephemeral painting of ever changing hues. Is pure magic… the April palest sun dances with the first shadows as the new moon enters the fading pink horizon…. shadows, and light—a game of love, like two lovers, like a sweet song of love.






Soon a fully swollen moon will be rising above the mountains in the far distance wearing a muted coat of white as bushes and trees, birch, flowering Pear and Maple tree rest under this swirl of clouds with a visiting yellow-orange light.


 




Vesper Sparrow, Chipping Sparrow, Towhee, Tree Swallow, Barn Swallow had returned to their nest... bluish crown and nape of mourning dove in her nest look at me with curious eyes... I say my good nights and wait for her enchanting woo-oo-oo-oo call. Why she’s chosen to build her nest upon the thorns of a climbing rose, is a mystery to me... a lesson to be learned, perhaps?

 




With the fading dusk comes the cooling calm of day, sinking into the surreal; a moment of passive pause, but it is time now to go inside... to wait for another tomorrow and the miracle of sunrise. Light will have a different quality to it in the morning, romantics and poets all over the world often talk about the magic hour, meaning sunrise, but I believe there are two magic hours in a day, sunrise and sunset, and each of the magic hours has its own type of light. Of course, that would have to be a "magical" light.






(Photographs and post written at sundown, last night)