Sunset and evening star
My office, in an upstairs sunroom, has two windows facing south, two north, and three west. The upstairs living room, which we have crammed with books to the point that there is room for only one chair, and even that has to be moved aside if we want to get at the hardcover short-story collections, has a big window over the front porch that also faces west.
After a dark and extensively cloudy beginning to winter, we've been having cold, clear evenings, or mostly clear evenings with thin wandering clouds. I am finally in the habit of looking out at sunset. There have been spectacular ones that turned all the clouds pink; blazing striped ones with a band of red, a band of hot pink, a band of orange, then green, then palest blue, green, medium blue, dark dark blue with pink clouds in it; unassuming ones with a band of orange fading to yellow fading to dark gray clouds.
Venus is the evening star. I can see it from the most southerly of the west-facing office windows, just between the neighbors' evergreen and the Norway maple on the boulevard. Tonight, in a subdued sunset of orange and yellow and pink, I couldn't find it. I went to the big library window. No Venus. There was a band of gray clouds above the pink of the horizon, but Venus should have been much higher than that. I got out my phone to check Google Sky Map. Eric texted me just then to say that he was on his way over. I answered him, and then looked at the sky again, raising the phone so that it would show me all the invisible stars and planets, and where the horizon was. Venus shone out, a pinprick to what it would be in full dark, but very much there. "Oh, there you are!" I said. I looked down at the phone to see how close Mars was to Venus, and when I looked back, Venus was gone again. Searching once more, I realized that the faintest of long stretchy clouds reached out from the horizon like ghost rays of the vanished sun. They were moving in the wind, and they hid and revealed Venus as they went, looking almost like an aurora.
The trees looked less stark than they had a few weeks ago. Buds might be starting.
Pamela
Edited to remove extraneous "window" from the text, as there are quite enough windows in the house already.
After a dark and extensively cloudy beginning to winter, we've been having cold, clear evenings, or mostly clear evenings with thin wandering clouds. I am finally in the habit of looking out at sunset. There have been spectacular ones that turned all the clouds pink; blazing striped ones with a band of red, a band of hot pink, a band of orange, then green, then palest blue, green, medium blue, dark dark blue with pink clouds in it; unassuming ones with a band of orange fading to yellow fading to dark gray clouds.
Venus is the evening star. I can see it from the most southerly of the west-facing office windows, just between the neighbors' evergreen and the Norway maple on the boulevard. Tonight, in a subdued sunset of orange and yellow and pink, I couldn't find it. I went to the big library window. No Venus. There was a band of gray clouds above the pink of the horizon, but Venus should have been much higher than that. I got out my phone to check Google Sky Map. Eric texted me just then to say that he was on his way over. I answered him, and then looked at the sky again, raising the phone so that it would show me all the invisible stars and planets, and where the horizon was. Venus shone out, a pinprick to what it would be in full dark, but very much there. "Oh, there you are!" I said. I looked down at the phone to see how close Mars was to Venus, and when I looked back, Venus was gone again. Searching once more, I realized that the faintest of long stretchy clouds reached out from the horizon like ghost rays of the vanished sun. They were moving in the wind, and they hid and revealed Venus as they went, looking almost like an aurora.
The trees looked less stark than they had a few weeks ago. Buds might be starting.
Pamela
Edited to remove extraneous "window" from the text, as there are quite enough windows in the house already.