I took the dog out for his evening walk around 9:40. We went around the house and down the hill toward the storm runoff that leads to the creek and our neighborhood park. The sky wasn't yet fully dark: more of a lavender grey against which the tops of the old, tall trees were silhouetted in black. The slope behind our next door neighbor's house, with its carefully trimmed lawn, glittered with fireflies, which would shine on for a second here and there, left, right, low to the ground or six feet above it, then shine off, unpredictably. There, between the trees, it was almost totally dark, but I could vaguely see a stain down the slope, which resolved (though without losing any of its vagueness) into a stag. I was startled by it for a second, the time to make out what that black void was among the glittering fireflies, before I more intuited than saw it turn and run away.

Such brief moments of beauty can appear in our lives unprepared, unexpected, with no connection to any other moments before or after; this can make them heartbreakingly perfect but also useless, unprocessable.

(It is impossible to convey in words the precise quality of that scene: a verbal description at best relates to the thing described as a transcription of a jazz solo might relate to having heard it in person. But ideally it can become the score based on which the readers play their own music. Is it relevant to add that I was listening, on headphones, to L.T.J. Bukem's "Coolin' Out" -- not the most poetically resonant track, granted; "Devil's Theme," which kicked in a few minutes later, would have been more aesthetically right -- or that we are during COVID?)

Here are two photos I took minutes later, as we walked, on the street now, back from the park: