Darkening Days

October 30, 2011

I sit at the table, early. Planning, thinking, praying, reading - in the quiet of dark.

Dad lights the fire in the woodstove. Car headlights swing round the bend along the river road. The indigo sky starts to lighten and I make my way to the desk to write. Life stirs around me. Breakfast making, kids rising, the sun above the horizon now.

Orange leaves burn fire against the azure sky. A hunter's blaze against gray bark. This intensity of color holds back the darkening days.

It's nearly supper time. Or at least it will be supper when I get this food on the table. I'm cooking under the kitchen halogens, dusk gathering outside the windows. Sun setting low behind the yellow leaved trees.

We sit down to eat, circling the table. The light fixture illuminating the warm, honeyed pine table. Wood reclaimed from a local mill. Our hands joined in prayer and just beyond darkness descends.

The fire still burns in the woodstove. Orion's belt bright in a pitch black sky. I knit a little, next to my husband, sitting on the couch. I read to the kids, my own eyes drooping, ready for sleep.