The Golden Hour

The Golden Hour

 

There is a golden hour when the colour of light is like a beautifully soft rose velvet shot through with slender gold filaments, muted with time. It reminds me of something I’ve seen in a painting, but I can’t remember where.

 It touches the landscape in the time before dusk. There is still light enough to be called day, but has the faded sepia tone suggesting age. The hours are older now, and biding their last strength for the spectacular burst of sunset.

There is a beautifully limbed tree in view from my kitchen window. The gilded rose of light brushes softly down one side of its trunk and drapes itself in a languid puddle on the ground. Rows of tiny willows marching along behind wear golden crowns, their scraggly heads given borrowed majesty.

 

With the light comes a beckoning, a soft call to be still, to absorb this gift of gentle beauty. To me it is like the footprint left behind when God walks through His garden in the quiet time of the day.

Ruins: a story in five sentences

 
Five Sentence Fiction from Lillie McFerrin Writes in which a story is told using only five sentences, inspired by one word.
This week's word is: Ruins.





Ruins

Five guests sat in an awkward silence so complete the ticking of the clock on the upstairs landing sounded like an ominously insistent metronome. One of the gentlemen tried to distract himself by watching to see if he could hear when the dust motes landed on the coffee table. He couldn't. Anyone entering the room just then would never believe that only moments before, the house had been filled with a cry of surprise followed by exclamations of horror, then wails of disappointment that brought all five friends in a swirling tangle of flying skirts and carefully pressed trousers to the kitchen where they piled up against each other in the doorway with one indrawn gasp of disbelief at the sight of a cat daintily licking buttercream icing off its paw. It was sitting like a queen on her throne atop a carefully crafted three-tiered birthday cake.

 

Of ducks and harbours.

While playing 'Dodge the pothole' on my way to work in the morning, I see a beguiling sight.

I drive on a major roadway - Canadians will know what I mean when I say it's a 400 series - which in my neck of the woods follows the south shore of the big lake. In one section, a low bridge takes us over a charming harbour (where rests a lighthouse and a pirate ship, two very cool things in close proximity). Despite the cold temperatures and general miserableness of this year's winter weather, a portion of the water on the inland side has remained open in a crescent shape.

I noticed what at first I thought were rocks dotting one segment of the arc right where open water meets ice. The water was very low, or so I thought, for rocks to be poking out like that.  Good thing nobody would be attempting to navigate a dinghy around there today.  Each day I noticed the rocks had a peculiar shape, but we zip by so very quickly it's hard to take in the details - particularly when the tractor-trailer pulling up beside you is insisting on his right to your lane - ... and then I finally realized: not rocks, but ducks! Or geese! Or gulls!  They were birds of some sort!  Sitting with their feathered little bums perched on the ice, dangling their webbed toes in the water, all in a gentle, curving row, like wee black gems on a necklace.

Every day, there they are, sitting in the exact same spots. It looks like the exact same number of them. I wonder, is it the same birds, morning after morning?  Are they frozen in place?  Do they need rescuing?  What is the avian version of a St. Bernard? If they all tried to take off at once, would they lift the frozen harbour with them?  Would any of the time-stressed people on the road with me notice such a thing?

These are the thoughts that fill my mind as I head to the big city to start my day of work.

From Linkin Park to Vienna

Happy Mardi Gras!

Lent begins tomorrow.  Are you giving anything up?  Taking on something extra?

I'll be starting a new job on Monday. I have to be there at 8am. That's feeling penitential after a year of not leaving the house until 9.25 for a 9.30 start. The interviewlette resulted in a job offer!

Hopefully it's not a misunderstanding.

On a piece of paper on my desk is written out a daily regimen for the next 40+ days. There's very little time for sloth and idleness (eh, Phipps?). I will also, if I have to strap myself into the chair, finally read Dante's Inferno. It's been gathering dust on the bedside table for 6 months. I know... pathetic attempt to hog the last brownie.

Giddiness has settled in. One shouldn't attempt to compose when one is feeling giddy. I can't seem to help myself though, as it is also enabling my procrastination habit.  I have four articles due by Thursday.  Four!

Also, one should select mood appropriate music when one is attempting to create thoughtful prose. Eve 6, Finger Eleven, Three Days Grace are conducive to dancing in the kitchen rather than productive reflection at the desk.

Calling Herr Brahms... Herr Brahms?