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I couldn’t sleep last night.
Earlier in the evening, my husband and I had stood on the bank overlooking our little cove. We watched the last warm fingers of the westering sun touch upon the arching limbs of the old arbutus that stretches in perpetual thanksgiving towards the light offered by that open space of water and stone and shell. Those final rays were piercingly and shockingly golden, turning the thin, peeling bark of the great tree into a glow of embers and its smooth, exposed skin into hot yellow flames licking along its branches. My head told me that it was the last sunset of summer; that in a few short hours, there would be a moment that would pass, silent and uncounted, in which one season would pass and another begin. My heart told me that if I hearkened to it, I would hear summer’s last, peaceful sigh in the rustling maple leaves overhead; great, broad leaves transformed by the last rays of light into a translucent gold-green canopy that seemed to bend down towards us as we walked the path along the forest edge, wrapping us in their changing hues, whispering to us in voices still soft and melodious before the brittle rattle of their final, falling dance.
These thoughts stayed with me as the light finally faded into darkness, and candles were lit and a deep red wine was savoured. They stayed with me as the bats darted, black against a slate sky and the stars appeared one by one in a revelation of quickening intensity. Perhaps it was these thoughts that entered into my sleep, preventing me from burrowing deeper into dream. Beginnings and endings. The beauty of a daughter’s smile before she turned to face her future. The wonder of a son growing tall towards manhood. The sharp swiftness of time.
Perhaps because these thoughts stayed with me in shallow sleep, when I awoke fully before dawn another thought was in my mind. I had seen and felt the setting sun on the last day of summer and now, more than anything, I wanted to witness it rising into autumn’s first morning.
Wrapped in down, I stepped into the chill of deep night and felt the stone patio cool and rough under my feet. I tucked myself into the V of a corner bench, and leaned back to look upward to the stars. They were still bright within the dark pools of sky that were bordered here and there with shadowy clouds – the only bright things in a dark, dark world, it seemed. Water, sky, wood and field blended together in various shades of grey, and with sight diminished, the sounds of night attained a simple and beautiful clarity: the sleepy chirruping of ducks bobbing unseen on the waters below, the drawn-out, comical croak of the little tree frog, slick and emerald green, that lives in the garden under the climbing rose, a rooster call echoing far in the distance, snapping twigs and rustling branches that marked the slow, cautious passage of our resident doe and her fawn, the sudden breath of an awakening motor somewhere in the harbour beyond the point, followed by the soft exhalations of “putt-putt-putt” as someone, wrapped in darkness, urged a little boat out to sea.
Before the color of the sky changed, the stars began to fade. As each one went out, it seemed that the heavens took on its light and diffused it across the entire sky. Forms sharpened as the darkness fled, and blotches of black became a copse of slender vine maples, the trellis over a garden gate, a future burning pile of deadfall and pruned branches waiting for the rains to come. I could feel the dew beginning to cling to the quilt cover, and the chill in the air grow more intense as the sky became an expanse of milky white. A mist formed, suspended over the waters of our cove and on into the harbour, veiling the distant hills and relegating familiar islets as places in memory rather than sight. Ocean, garden, trees, fences, sky – all took on the pale light of dawn, their colours oddly flat, as if viewed through clouded glass. And then, quite suddenly, the sea mist changed, and became tinged with a colour I had no name for: a colour of warmth against a deepening blue sky. Light seemed to chase away the mists as the first rays of the morning sun stretched into the cove and bounced against tree trunks and leaves, tall grasses and beach pebbles. But soon I realized that the mists hadn’t really disappeared – they had become suspended throughout the very air, like the fading stars melting into the pale light of the awakening sky – and they were infused with a pink gold and violet cream that continued to deepen until earth, sky and water were one great glow. On the edge of the beach across from us, the tree trunks turned to burnished copper and the still, clear waters that met its graceful curve were crystal green. From the branches of the old arbutus that we stood beside at sunset, a kingfisher burst over the cove as if drawn to the glowing light reflected on the other side. It’s familiar call sounded like a laugh – like a joyful welcome to the coming day, autumn’s first morning.
'Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless?' Those words came to me as I roused myself and stole back into the house for a cup of tea and the added warmth of morning sunshine through window glass. Beginnings and endings mean little when you wholly embrace the currents of the world, even fleetingly. I had, for a little while, escaped from the harness of time. It was more than being in the moment or being aware of the moment……it was being the moment itself.
Sometimes, I think, it can be good not to sleep.
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Who could be so lucky? Who comes to a lake for water and sees the reflection of moon.
Jalal ad-Din Rumi
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Artwork by Breogán - thank you, my friend! 
'Fear nothing! Have peace until morning! Heed no nightly noises!'
