Winter Scene

[rejectomorph]

At the end of a chilly and cloudless day, the sun shone through the pines with an intense golden light. Only when it had set did a band of rose form in the haze along the horizon. Against the evening light, the bare oaks displayed their intricate structure, from dark, massive trunks to gnarled branches, to small aspiring twigs. Each sharp and slender needle of the nearer pines was etched against the darkening blue of the sky, and the cones could be seen as dark knots near the tips of the branches, which swoop out from the trunks and then curve upward. Hanging above the trees was the thin crescent of the new moon, seeming translucent, like a fingernail. I watched it brighten as the sky darkened and the day slipped away, pulling the moon after it.