It seems that this
winter is truly meant to make up for the last: cold days are few and far
between, and day after day the sun shines from a cloudless sky. It is just cold
enough to keep the snow – only about five centimetres of it – from melting, so
that the landscape looks like winter still. I hope it will stay that way for a
while: those years when a snow-free March seems to drag along endlessly, the
earth bare, no colour anywhere, are not my favourites. Then, I would indeed
prefer the masses of snow we had last year. For now, however, I enjoy it very
much to be able to go for walks without snow suit and scarf, even late at
night.
I have done that often
in the last while, to Leo’s delight, who will go for walks any time. I don’t
take a flashlight when I go out, and nearly every time my path has been lit by
the changing moon. I watched the full moon rise, huge, the colour of a blood
orange, with a strangely flattened top until it had entirely cleared the
horizon within a matter of a few minutes. Soon the colour drained, it shrank,
and was perfectly round again. Why is it that the moon seems so much bigger
when it is so low in the sky? It must have to do with the proximity of the
horizon, when our eyes still have other objects to relate it to. In any case,
it is marvellous every time anew!
I have seen the moon
changing position, depending on the time of night. Sometimes, it was ahead of
me, the well-trodden path along the southern edge of the home quarter a ribbon
of light stretching out before me. Sometimes, it traveled, higher up, by my
side, shining through the row of poplars that form the border of the field,
their trunks casting shadows across my path, filigree shadow branches a net
holding the diamond-sparkling snow. Once, it was at my back, and that time I
had a bit of trouble seeing where to put my feet, because my shadow obscured
the way.
The time of the
moonrise often seems to be strangely erratic: at full moon, it rose shortly
before six, the western sky still full of warm light, afterglow of the sunset.
Only days later I had only starlight to see by: the moon didn’t rise until well
after midnight.
No wonder this shows up in myths like the Kalevipoeg from
Estonia. Here, the maiden Salme is wooed by the moon-youth, but she turns him
down with these words:
Him I will not have for husband,
And the night-illumer love not.
Far too varied are his duties,
And his work is much too heavy.
Sometimes he must shine in heaven
Ere the day, or late in evening;
Sometimes when the sun is rising;
Sometimes he must toil at morning,
Ere the day has fully broken;
Sometimes watches in the daytime,
Lingering in the sky till
mid-day."
I
wouldn’t dream of turning down the moon at any time it wants to shine for me –
but then, unlike for Salme, it is not a question of marriage for me.
It is
not only the moon that has drawn me outside at night. The display of stars
alone would be well worth it, and there is hardly a night where it isn’t
spectacular. Increasingly, however, we have been blessed with most wonderful
northern lights again. For more than a year they had been almost non-existent,
and only last spring we started to see more of them.
The
night before last Magnus called to alert me to one of the most intense displays
I have seen in a very long time.
Imagine ....
Triple row of light
weaving back and forth in the north
turning around
from both sides
to meet again,
undulating seams
of pink and green and blue,
spikes of
bright white light
like forks of
lightning
bolting towards
the ground.
Suddenly
silence.
A moment later
sky awash with
milky light,
stars shining
through.
Slowly, the diaphanous
veil
becomes form,
tightens, a spiral
twisting up,
and up
and up,
turns in onto
itself
in the zenith,
curls up like a
kitten
going to sleep
-
for a moment:
nothing
is permanent.
All the while
little pieces
of coloured light
gossamer cloth
on fire,
melting
dropping down
dripping down
spreading out
gone.
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