Earth Turns in Our Sleep

The leaf-screened moon, setting, floods thin cloud with light so that it seems to be steaming. Every spot of sky revealed by gaps in the trees shimmers. All the cloud mass which drifted across the ridge through the night now hangs above the valley. After glowing brightly at moonset, it vanishes into darkness until, with the fields and forest and the town blanketed in sleep, it will be conjured back into existence by the emerging light.