Conjunction

[rejectomorph]

Again the night had turned cold. The warm breezes of the last few nights had been stilled, and the hush lying over the forest was as deep as the darkness. When Venus and the moon first rose, and hung for a while in the bare branches of the oaks, they were blurred by thin clouds. Above them, stars glittered in clear sky. I watched the smiling crescent and its companion swing free of the tangling twigs and float through the layer of clouds and into the clarity. The part of the moon not illuminated by sunlight glowed with earthshine. Even in such close proximity to the moon, Venus was very bright. But, a little way above it, Mars was a dim, reddish pinpoint, unable to compete with its flamboyant sister planet.

Overhead, a few patches of cloud picked up the glow of moonlight, and in the west, they were thick enough to obscure all but the brightest stars. But Venus and the moon continued to shed their steady, white light as the clear sky gradually shaded from black to deep blue. The stars around them faded and vanished, and a red glow came into the clouds through which they had passed earlier. The pines emerged from darkness and a soft morning breeze began to blow, and the first songbirds chirped. The full orb of the moon vanished in the brightening sky, leaving only the shining crescent, and Venus seemed to grow smaller, yet brighter than its larger and nearer companion. I don't know for how long it will remain visible, and I won't be staying up to see it vanish. I know that the pale moon will probably outlast it. I know that, unseen, Venus will still be there, passing overhead as I sleep. The thought pleases me.

Comments

[jaarronn.livejournal.com]

Another of your wonderfully described observations, J.; so vividly detailed and pronounced that I felt I was there. In a way it was a little like an ‘echo’ in that here, thousands of miles to the east, and therefore somewhat earlier, I too observed the predawn eastern sky. It snowed a little last night, leaving a fine dusting upon the land. Fortunately, the clouds that brought the snow were rapidly dissipating before an increasingly insistent northwestern wind, so that the rising crescent moon and Venus were visible. I thought of you as I watched – I hoped the weather conditions there would be such that you would be able to see the things I was seeing. I hoped so for you – and, for myself, because I knew that if you did, I would have the pleasure of reading how you saw them. Naturally, (no pun intended) it is a nice thing when we find others who notice and share their delight in some of the same things we see around us. But, always, when I read your descriptions of them, I come away with things added. They are often not things seen especially, though sometimes they are, but rather enhancements to perception - as I had this morning. Thank you.