summer nights

I have always loved night. Not that I particularly prefer it to day, but there’s something about the hours of darkness; the time between fading twilight, velvet blackness and the unveiling of don. Night seems poetic and magical some how; certainly the poets thought so, However, I realize there are many poems also about the day and things that only happen during the day time, but I particularly love the night and all its mysteries. For example, how midnight is called “the witching hour,” or how it is said that nothing good comes from a call between 2 and 4 a.m. However 3 a.m. is also called “the hour of magic.” I have always liked a good mystery, and night with its noises, animals and goings on all under the cover of darkness is a mystery.

If I had to pick a season, in which I liked night best, I would be stumped. However there is something to be said about a summer night. Even when I was young, I would tell people that I would most like to be out at night during a fog. It’s something about the warm dark closeness that makes me feel as though I’m floating.

Then there are the sounds. The sounds of summer are unique. Certainly they are different from one part of the world to the next, but they are all similar in a way and unique as a whole. Sounds of course are something I pay special attention to. The chirp of frogs; the ever unanswered question of the owl on his nightly hunt; the crickets like tiny bells; louder and faster, more persistent as the night grows hotter and stickier. There is the shushing of trees as the wind yawns; the musical lilt of chimes, as they carry unseen from someone’s porch through the darkness; and then the soft tinkle of birds, as they begin their day.