The tide of dark nights

Oh, it’s wonderful down here in my own little world.  If I switch this light off I’m in a cloak of dark velvet, pierced by the porch lights.  The moon is leaning towards her crescent, tipping southwards but still so bright in the indigo sky.  Hanging over the garden is a faint mist which disappears as you walk into it for the sky is clear and we are open to the breaths of heaven. Only four days until the solstice, until the shortest day and longest night. 

The night creeps up on us steadily, day by day, bringing the cold on its back, and leaving it here for the short hours of light.  It is so still, waiting patiently for the turn of the year when the tide of dark nights will creep inexorably back, and the fullness of winter cold will fill every space between bare branch and open sky.  We won’t notice the turn as it is in Christmas week, and by January when we have time to notice it will be here already, settled and established.

The seasons always start a little earlier than their date, and winter is ushering autumn off the stage and preparing its props.  Yesterday it surprised us with a deep-freeze morning and light snow for starters in the afternoon.  Then the autumn drizzle took back the evening, and who will win today?  There is more snow forecast and the garden is resigned to whatever may come.  It is starting its long sleep.