Spring Evening

The apple orchard, dressed in white, hums with bees. Blades of grass stir as small lizards wriggle across the lawn, birds rustle the bushes, and a single white butterfly inspects the sourgrass. Day ending, drowses, unstirred by the slow drumming of the acorn woodpecker or the occasional screech of a jay. The sky is that shade of blue into which the gaze eagerly falls and then drifts like a hawk riding thermals. The passage from day to night is now longer, the sunset shadows bending south, then fading like a slow sigh, the scented breeze gradually cooling as the sky deepens to cobalt and Venus emerges looking like a jewel displayed on velvet. The clouds having retreated to their mountaintop seats, the trees again cast moonlight shadows, but the tracery of branches and twigs is now softened by new leaves, making the patterns more subtle. The spring night is like a downy bed, and I sink into its folds and I watch the stars, and wonder if I am dreaming.