Pandora's box is a black silhouette of trees that border the horizon. Flung wide open a fine spray escapes to stain the sky burnt topaz and rose. Tourmaline watercolour blossoms bleed up grenadine smears that flow into amber smoke and the open indigo beyond. Rose coloured lenses filter the atmosphere and paint the world in shades of strawberry blond. The carmine flood sings a requiem for the day in languid notes of gold and pomegranate tears. Twilight boats cast nets of shadow to gather the radiance, dragging it up to the char blackened lips of night so that she can devour the cherry flavoured light.

Under a sky of Eric Sloane manganese blue the early morning light burnishes the stubble of wheat to a golden glow that runs for acres and acres across the fields. A pristine swirl rises on the thermal as a flock of seagulls take silent distant flight. The flurry of white is stark against the stratus clouds, a long sinuous line forming a Chinese dragon of folded paper wings.

The cooling earth, slick and chill, reclines in the twilight of her year.

Johnny-come-lately, the warm wind is a tentative caress. Fingers of air, velvet and tender, stroke the cool flesh stirring up echoes of sun-heated passion. Her lips part and misty sighs, like summer's specters, rise to walk the land again. Laid open and bare, her languid arms reach to enfold the warmth and carry it deep inside. The sweet reek of grass and loam seeps up through the ground. Wet and warm, knots of hair catch on fingers of mist. The jagged teeth of bare bark split the waves that seek the hidden places. Entwined so tight the two are one. Earthbound clouds creep close to watch and then draw modesty's curtain round the brazen embrace.

Blanketed in grey the day is still but for the gentle drip of the rain from tree branch to ground.

Drunk with its own power and full of bully and bluster Sunday's wind staggered across the fields bumping into barns shaking foundations and pulling off shingles. It ravaged the trees with clumsy hands ripping the delicate fabric of their leaves and stripping the branches to leave them bruised and naked to the sky. Monday dawned clear on the hangover left behind. The old apple tree, cleaved once again, stands divided. A broken limb, moss pocked and hoary, lies crushed and broken upon the piles of leafy lace. The white of wet wood bleeds resin. The feathered crown of blue spruce is laid low, torn from a usurped giant too large to hide from the wind's fury. The echoes of violence, though pale, still linger while all about the birds peek cautious heads out looking for the all clear.

     Seasons clothe the far-reaching fields. First comes the green, sweet and tender. Rife in the morning of the year, it is followed by the hard accent of that annual noon heralding the change from growth to ripening. Gold is the colour of the orb's twilight rotation turning to seek its rest. The night is found at last under blankets of white that swaddle the land through the cold barren span of the day’s end.

     Lightening scarred, battle weary, the solitary watcher rides the hours of each year's day. His gnarled arms, verdant raiment long forgotten, spread in supplication. Let the land rise up in waves. Let the wind and the rain lay old souls low. Grant rest eternal in the whirlpool tide.  Sweet gratitude would welcome that eddy’s embrace, free to slip below the surface, sinking away from light, life and duty. Cry mercy for a lonely guardian. Grant oblivion in the arms of the mother, let the vigil be done at last.

Blazing stars sing an accompaniment to the brightest of moons. There have been days the earth fretted under less lustrous heavens than those that grace her curves tonight. Burning foxfire, cold iridescent blue blaze alight the stone, the leaf, the vine. Velvet dark, deep indigo, the forbidden shadows sing a dangerous siren's call. Ancient ethereal luminosity gives lie to the yoke of man. Cold, eternal and unyielding, it is beautiful beyond reckoning.

Caelum videre iussit, et erctos as sidera tollere vultus

~Ovid~

Sun dappled weedy shadows ripple beneath the calm unknowing. Cold steel shining bright pierces the small cold heart. Blow flows, tail bites and he is gone. Sinking under calm waters to breath again midst the cool cover of dark weeds.

The call of the loon rises as the boat skips over the water. The languid flapping of great blue wings reaches to settle awkwardly within the heights of the jack pine. Red hawk cuts the air flying high and true over the water up above the cliffs. Shining quick silver, talon pierced, writhes on a first and final flight. Glint of silver scales stirs great blue wings to fill the sky in pursuit of that mercurial bounty.

Sun showers mist bright rainbows cross the heavens. Smell the dark loam, rich and blanketed in a century of cast off needles. Hoary giants stand sentry. Broad spans encrusted with moss send imploring hands to worry the sky. Anchoring roots crawl across the earth grasping deeply lest ancient Titans are tempted to scale the cloud enshrouded foothills to seek the forbidden heights. Peers of my ancestors, the Fates have waited long to cut your thread.

Quiet darkness lies beneath. There is no today or tomorrow here, only this timeless silent spell. A lattice of branches, an interlocking maze that holds the storm now past, grudgingly bares secret slivers of a blue rain swept expanse.

Small beneath the sheltering boughs, the sweet sting of paths secret and past imbues the senses. Face upturned to watch the rush of tears that falls into outstretched arms.