Cold

[rejectomorph]

Cleared, the moonless sky becomes a strew of stars. Motionless air is chilled, the woods frozen, the quiet broken only by the flutter of leaves whose grasp has failed, and by the high-pitched cry of a single night bird. Orion now marches across two thirds of the sky before the approach of dawn makes him fade, but it is still dark when I return indoors. A sudden thump and flutter attracts my attention. Some small bird strikes my window glass again and again, until I draw the shade. My patch of light must have been as fascinating to that bird as the patch of dark my window revealed was to me.



Sunday Verse

October Nocturne

by Yvor Winters


The night was faint and sheer;
Immobile, road and dune.
Then, for a moment, clear,
A plane moved past the moon.

O spirit cool and frail,
Hung in the lunar fire!
Spun wire and brittle veil!
And trembling slowly higher!

Pure in each proven line!
The balance and the aim,
Half empty, half divine!
I saw how true you came.

Dissevered from your cause,
Your function was your goal.
Oblivious of my laws,
You made your calm patrol.