We reach the top of the field just as the sun touches Laurel Ridge. The low, red-gold light lifts from the woods like the curtain going up on evening.
We watch the sunset unobstructed by the structures of men. No hard lines or right angles in our view, only the tossing hills whose lines we can draw from memory.
Blackbirds are flying to their roosts. Mourning doves call. The windmills on the far mountain are still. As are we. This is the proper way to end the day.
Each hour is eventful when we pay attention. This morning jonquils erupted in a clump behind the stone wall. Arrivals are easy to notice. They announce themselves. Departures are harder to know.
The slate-colored juncos will be leaving soon. Any sunrise now they will be gone, headed for the Arctic Circle until they return this fall a few days before the first snow. I gauge the spring and winter on the juncos more than bluebirds or daffodils. It will be soon. They seemed hungrier today.
As for the jonquils, I pinched off seven (odd looks best to me), and put them in a small pot turned by the hands of a friend. I am never without flowers in a vase, the last cutting of the fall drying to a ravaged beauty that pleases me all winter. We can throw them out now. A new age is under way today. And tomorrow, another.
copyright 2010 J. O"Brien, all rights reserved
