The Evening has not yet Come.

At the bottom of this page is a musical link, click on it and then read on.

Long ago Joni Mitchell wrote a song called Shadows and Light. Superficially the song was about her focus on painting. She painted and perhaps still paints with a passion. The intensity of her colors especially in her oils seems to this observer to be as intense and ardent as the talent she more famously displays in words and music. Over the years her album covers have been populated with her art ranging from watercolors to oils. Some of the images I like very much. Some just leave me cold. But art for me is exactly that way, a take it or leave it proposition. I am not refined and I tend to like things that are more visually accessible. Many people would say that I am that way about life that I always desire of the easy answer, the quick fix. Maybe, but time will judge the merit of my solitary life lived among billions. Still Ms. Mitchell’s song comes back to me again and again.

Tonight as I write I am in my backyard. The air is warm and humid. A fountain I meant to set up last year sits near this discombobulated table at which I work. My market umbrella with its one moth hole is tilted to the west so that I can see the screen of the computer. Everywhere there are shadows and light. The fading sun’s rays stretch out long, long and gone. Bird song fills the air and a dog barks nearby. Most often this early twilight kind of light is described as golden or if the conditions are right amber. Neither of these words captures the sense filling essence of the light or how it plays splashing patterns across the verdant (and abundant) weeds that make up my small patch of lawn. The long weeds don’t matter to my mind, the glorious light does. The shadows do too.

Another bird trills in the distance calling, calling for connection. The birds will fall silent when the shadows win out and the reflected lawn green and warm light grow dark. But for now the balance between light and shadow is nearly perfect. This backyard it is my picture of all the good in this world, imperfect but good enough. This warm night is the gallery in which a unique picture hangs done up this way in shadows and light for a one time only exhibition. No matter how melancholy I may ever feel shadows and light on a shirt sleeve warm night connect me to something holy. It will not last but for right now it is good enough.