Dusk in New Jersey

It's past seven o'clock but the sky is still bright. An airplane, surprisingly close, slides across blue-grey clouds whose bellies glow warmly, the color of summer apricots. Behind them, the sky is cornflower blue, shading imperceptibly into pale yellow as the eye travels down. The yellow ends abruptly in an unfamiliar horizon--a bank of clouds disguised as a mountain range. It reminds me of the mountains at home, of wooded foothills with mist rising off them as the sun slides into the Pacific.

But this isn't California, this is New Jersey. The trees silhouetted against the sunset are still starkly leafless. I am home alone (except for the rabbit, who is adorable but silent), and home is such a different place than it was a year ago. Has it really been eight whole months since I moved to this state? since I became half of a new household, a new family (a word I feel more justified in applying since we adopted a baby bunny)? since I married O. and changed my name?

Emotions change as swiftly and smoothly as the clouds shifting color as the sun sets. The apricot is gone out of the clouds now, they have all cooled to a smoky blue. The pale yellow has deepened subtly, producing a peach-like effect. Ah, summer and your fruits, how I miss you. Spring offers warmth, brilliant sunlight, soft blossoms, but moments later the wind whips itself up, and the sun flees. Clouds come and go. Today I have cried and then laughed as many times as the clouds have covered the sun and then parted. The night is young--darkness has not yet fallen, it lingers in the east and creeps nearer: how many more tears will fall from my eyes, before I fall into bed? and how many times will my lips curve in a smile, or a kiss, before sleep wraps me up?

Another airplane passes, and another, shadows now against a white sheet. The wind roars through the city. In the distance a contrail glows like a sideways candle. The peachy glow above the cloud-range dims, but magenta stripes--like lacerations--break through the blue of the false mountains. Behind them, the sun must be burning still, white hot, as it always is.