“Hello, Goodbye”-The Night Sky

Is anything so cathartic as cotton candy clouds dotting a winter’s skyline? With that iconic Blue Ridge Mountain backdrop at sunset? Even those completely naked tree silhouettes look anything but vulnerable. After-all, they’re in good company… so they stand tall, stoic, and proud; a perfect contrast against those fluffy wisps of pure-white. Aye, these trees are as black as unadulterated night.

A few birds dare to cross. Not one is alone, but each looks to flutter as free as can be. Together they soar through that dazzling horizon. And even those few clouds plagued by the darkest, deepest, and saddest of blues are now adorned with brilliantly blinding halos of solid gold. Hope lives in each perfect ring.

The birds journey on while the skyline remains ablaze in a transformative dance. Colors are mingling as they please — the bold and the dull alike. It’s a maddening swirl of gorgeous chaos. Intimate pink roses naively slip into tanzanite’s easy-going magnetic pull. They’re both flirting with all that boisterous, but subduing, orange. Blue feels his dominance slipping away…

How kind. How cruel. Of Nature, you know? Exposing the true treasure of things, highlighting their warmest, richest, most illustrious of hues… only mere moments before they’re lost. Like autumn leaves just before they’ve fallen to a powerful, but cold and colorless, new empire.

The sun is slipping, and surely setting. Darkness has already wedged its way in between all those radiant silver linings. Inevitably, it will envelop all of this lovely light. Not even the most pristine, innocent cotton candy cloud is immune. Inescapable darkness is rising.

The first lonely bird breezes by, but she’s soon lost in the shadows. That night, it’s a ruthless beast. Abducting or corrupting all it its path. All this beauty is fading into black.

But so far, night’s never been known not to give in to day, eventually. It always seems to give light another chance, pushing it back up every morning.

© Brittany Stepniak