The slate blue clouds layer across the sky above the last remnants of gold clinging to the tops of the trees. It’s that melancholy time of day that I love so much.
It reminds me of the summer after my freshman year of college, when I was walking on the lawn at Rockdale, my Grandmother’s house, with my beau Langley, a fellow poet. We were discussing the book I’d just finished for English class and the report I had to write that weekend.
It was Faulkner’s “Sound and the Fury” and Langley felt it was a real story that exposed the underbelly of true Southern life. He had grown up in Culpepper, Virginia, and ought to know. He wrote poetry about cows and drying tobacco, then.
Somehow that stroll across the lawn is how I always feel about twilight. The fireflies are just about to come out. The air is warm. It's early summer, and you can hear the distant barking of a dog.
Now it’s only April, but already I feel the approach of summer. I’m ready for those languid days of drinking lemonade and watching the bees looking for clover and alfalfa. I’m ready for whatever inspiration may come.
Why are we artists so prone to melancholy? That’s a question for another day, but I put it out there. It’s always haunted me.
4 comments:
Beautifully written, sunsets and memories and the melancholy of artists... I suffer from stasis and indecision more so and can't offer a response... to your lucid and languid question. (I am enjoying Nightwing too!) :) xoxo
Stasis and indecision ... I know that extended moment well, too. I concocted a mantra to deal with it. "When in doubt, keep moving." It's what I call my first corollary. Glad you're enjoying Nightwing! Love to hear that.
Evening is magical, and leads us as much into melancholy as it does into the fall of darkness. I love evening and daybreak immeasurably, but they are quite different in character, and evening decidedly wears the cloak of greater melancholy.
Thank you, Matt. I notice that many of your photos of Africa are taking with the rising or setting sun. You have that appreciation of the magic of evening.
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