JOY ALONG THE WAY: EVENING GLOW IN THE SKY AND IN THE HEART

A little after-school visitor stayed longer than intended recently, the book we read being of more than the usual pages. When she stepped out the back door, she said, somewhat alarmed, "Oh, look what time it is!" She was observing the sun already half down at its appointed place on the western horizon. I sensed a note of half apology for staying so long, half fear that she had violated some home rule to always be home by sundown. She went flying down the walk, blond hair streaming out behind.

It left me with such a pleasant sensation. Here was a child who was being reared to respect parental authority and a nature child who told time by the sun.

It was warm enough to sit in the porch swing and enjoy the feeling that some things are still right and to enjoy the rest of the sunset.

I've never read any scientific journals explaining why winter sunsets are more beautiful than those at other times of the year. Is it merely because the foliage is off and I can see better? That sounds reasonable but not factual in my opinion.

The gold is simply golder. The rosette glow just more glowing. The clouds, if there be any, are not like summer clouds, pudgy as the Pillsbury doughboy, but lean and striated, separating the marvelous colors.

Outside things begin to rest in earnest now. The leaves that escaped the first raking, ramble around low to the ground as if they've had enough of chlorophyll and tanic acid, enough of to and froing around and are about to lie down for good and go on to their next stage.

I note, while the sky is still aglow, that the chamomile flowers have bent their blossomed heads to the ground. "You better snip me now if you want next February's tea," they seem to say. "We're all tired out."

So I bestir myself to get the kitchen scissors and behead them, along with bits of stalk and leaves to add strength to my next year's tea.

While at this pleasant little chore I inspect the bare ground where I earlier sowed the poppy seed and larkspur. It isn't bare anymore. The little two-leaved poppy seedlings have pushed through the ground and here and there are tiny scalloped larkspur leaves, looking like fairy green place mats. I'm pleased to remember that enough of the seedlings will survive to make spring more colorful, and, of course, there are more seeds down below, just waiting.

I look at the sky again and see the thinnest slice of cantaloupe in the southwestern sky -- the new moon, of course.

Lights in neighboring houses come on. Doors have opened and shut. Home coming. Sweet homecoming. Everything seems so in order -- an obedient child telling time by the sun, sown seeds sprouting, giving promise of spring. Families gathering for the night.

Well, that's the way things ought to be, as Rush would say. But it ain't always so.

Still, the Higher Laws are in place, ones we can't veto. Therefore, we know that however long it takes mankind to get in sync, eventually he will.

After my own lights are turned on, I listen, via TV, to see if man has made one step forward or two steps back, at least politically. Whichever way I assess it to be, I go to my book re-read some reassuring stories.

And at this time of the year, it is my old favorite Christmas stories, Truman Capote's, "A Christmas Story," Dickens', "The Cricket on the Hearth," Bess Streeter Aldrich's, "Star Across the Tracks," Luke 2 Etc.

REJOICE!

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime columnist for the Southeast Missourian.