When you step out onto the concrete, your shadow belongs only to the dull orange streetlamps, at times it is stretched in front of and behind you as the glare of one bright filament casts itself into the glare of another. These shadows seem week and cowardly, growing feebly, then suddenly shrinking to a point as the bulb passes overhead. Even further on, where the lamps are more sparse, only on corners rather than every twenty feet, the shadow will at times disappear all together into the dark of the night air.
During those dark spaces, another presence makes itself known, filtering through the dry, hibernating limbs of the oak trees above. Filtering down onto the concrete, the light seems almost blue, but then that hint fades as the next streetlight or the next car approaches. At some point, the lamps overhead cease to reappear, and the lofty ancient oaks are replaced by scraggly willows that grow thick, almost to the point of creating a tunnel over the packed snow that has replaced the pavement. Suddenly, the mellow grade of the land rises steeply ahead, and the willows are no more. In this immediate absence of artificial light or other impedance, the moon's beams shine with full force onto the snow covered ground. Transformed by the distant lunar surface, the sun's energy is less harsh, but equally stunning in my opinion. Colors are subdued, details are revealed only to those who choose to look, the world is held under the sleepy spell of night, but for those whose eyes are open, there arrives a heightened, vibrating energy along with the abnormal abundance of light on these nights. It is not to be wasted.
