Nightlife
It is
December, it is midnight and it is very cold. I have been carol-singing in the
village and despite freezing hands, feet and nose I feel warm inside from the
pleasure of the evening and, perhaps, the mulled wine. I look up at the sky; it
is intensely black behind the confusion of stars and a thin slice of new moon. I
know if I turn to face the west the stars will be lost in the glow of street
lights from the town which creeps closer and closer as the town eats up the
green fields. So I continue to look to the north and east over the village
where a deep darkness and the stars prevail.
It is June, it is three in the
morning and it is very warm and very still. Unable to sleep for the heat I am
sitting on the front terrace, watching a new day rouse from sleep. A fox barks
in the distance, a hedgehog bustles across the lawn, and a Barn owl sweeps
along the dusky hedge. A blackbird gives his first tentative call and suddenly
the garden is awake, full of chattering birds, from the gentle cooing of the
collared doves to the joyous singing of the blackbirds. In the east the soft golden
glow has turned to vibrant red as the minutes pass and the sun pops up over the
cottage roof next door. Then the gentle sounds of the garden are overwhelmed by
the distant, but insistent roar of the traffic as the working day begins.
©Jan Godfrey, June 27, 2016
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