• And you’ll stand out as the sky washes across the horizon an array of reds, oranges, pinks, and yellows; a scattering of clouds illuminated by brilliant color whom draw their intensity from the final efforts of the dying sun to forge an epitaph of remembrance. Slowly from overhead, the world darkens and successive tides o f blues, each darker than the one before it, sweep over the land. And slowly the last traces of color and light fade from view; a slight breeze, an exhaled breath that choruses around in the early chill of a retired summers day. And slowly, as if candles lit in dark corridors, small flashes of light resound around you as lightning bugs take to the night sky. As they drift up towards the sky, their occasional breach of the darkness becomes lost in the sky and the stars; and suddenly every firefly around you is a shooting star, falling from the heavens, each star another chance, another wish, another dream. And beneath your feet the grass will bow and bend silently in the wind, an unrelenting effort as though you stood in the ocean and watched the endless course of waves that took ashore the dimmed memories of thousands of years, of history. From behind the blackened clouds will emerge the moon, a bright, glowing orb that stands on endless vigil; the silent keeper of dreams, the silent guardian of night. And as you feel the cool summer breeze envelope you and you stand beneath the falling stars and stand in the midst of the coursing time, you know you’re alive. You know that these nights will last forever.