August, 1997
Landscape
The air tonight was chilly enough to make me want mittens
on my hands when I took my little trek around the corner of
the house to the bedroom window. The wind blew fiercely
across the fields, trying to turn me back, but I rather
welcomed its velocity. Such rewards as I reap when I walk
there should not be without cost.
The aspect is never twice the same. Today, white cumulus
clouds with blue undersides rode the northeast horizon. Above
them cirrus clouds spun their threads across an expanse of blue
sky, defying the dark mass lowering in the west.
What took my breath even more than the wind, was the sun, blazing out
from under the dark clouds. Though the nearer fir woods were still in
shadow, the sun turned newly-green trees on the hills to golden groves
and lit the far hills into bright clarity.
The Lamp in the Wood
Today, dear friend, the lamp in the wood will not blaze
forth in unencumbered radiance. The sun is muted and hidden
in soft, blue cloud curtains. Against its pale luminosity,
the wild geese seek the northern waters in noisy, glad gabbling.
The lamp glow will be quiet, contained, and guarded in the
trees. In the wood today the air is still, subdued, chilly.
The little creatures are not in evidence.
The fir, the spruce, the pine hold their secrets and resent
the intrusion of large feet in stout boots. One chickadee flits
across the vision, curious, seeking. One's mood is attuned to clouds.
Indecision holds captive the wondering, wandering mind. The path
diverges and disappears. One stands in the stillness, quiescent....
First Light
The dark subsides
slowly the lightening eastern horizon shows
pastel shades of blue and mauve, and a muted sheen spreads over
green fields. Trees, still, in the windless air, sketch dark
patterns against the blue horizon.
Now shafts of pink streak across the sky. Can these be presages to
"red sky in the morning"? As the light increases the darker blue on the
horizon now is seen as a cloud bank; the paler blue with the mauve and
pink are, incredibly, in clear sky. No sound shatters the stillness.
Now all is visible. The neighbor's house and red barn stand distinct;
the barn's pale roof gleams in the growing light. Bright daisies
punctuate the green in the tall grass. The first redwing blackbird of
the morning lands and sways in a small tree that bends under his weight.
Paler cirrus clouds drift in patterns above the pink and mauve that
now fade to nothing. More blackbirds flit over the marsh. Something
purple shows at the edge of the field.
Still no sound. No rumbling truck, no buzzing automobile. Where is
everyone? The sun, lazy fellow, still hides below the horizon, though trees,
house, barn, marsh and field are now light, clear, and definite.
Copyright © Katherine Hilton
All rights reserved.
Katherine Hilton moved to Linneus, about 6 miles southwest of Houlton, in 1996, after spending most of her life on the coast of Maine in Brunswick, Freeport, and Rockland. She began writing seriously about 12 years ago at the age of 64. She splurged last year on a brand-new Chrysler.
© 1997 reality x publishing co.
All rights reserved.