I've only just realised how beautiful the word evening is. Maybe I'm new to this: that evening up between day and night, that hour between dog and wolf, is a time of even - ing. The hour when everything is harmoniously balanced with light and dark. To go back to some earlier thoughts about the fugue and the gloaming, the word 'evening' begins to hold more meaning for me.
It's been a pretty decent full moon. Random Man (yes that one) has been out at the inlet mouth the last few days in his kayak, fishing for salmon. He said it was so bright out there on the white sands of the beach, that he could walk through the bush like it was broad daylight.'There was that triple ring around the moon,' he told me. 'There were dolphins surfing and whales jumping out of the water.'
I stayed in my house and watched the moon rise over the forest canopy. At midnight, as I was falling asleep, all hell broke loose on the back veranda. I heard the hound race out. Furniture and milk crates flying, glass jars of smoking chips breaking and then lots of shouting (from me), crashing sounds. In the torchlight I watched my dog try to kill a feral cat. I had to finish off the poor critter with an axe. I do wonder what the AirBnB guests next door were thinking about the kerfuffle. Surely, anyone else who has had to kill an animal at midnight with an axe, dressed only in underpants and ugg boots, will understand my story.
This brings me back to the gloaming, the evening. It's the hour between dog and wolf.
Christ, what a way to be woken. I laughed about the Air b&bs. Ingmar Bergman described the hour of the wolf as that time when you stay up all night and everything subtly but distinctly changes at some point before dawn.
ReplyDeleteAt this point my sister hugged and hugged me. It was pretty fucking horrible.
DeleteOh Christ having to finish off a feral cat with an axe. My weapon of choice here is the spade although that is mainly because I don't have an axe but it does the slicing pretty quick too. (My own semi-feral cats bring a fair amount of biggish stuff in from the fields for me to deal with). i like even-ing, that point when the day is finished and night has not yet begun and the time is my own.
ReplyDeleteIt was the back of the axe, so blunt force more than anything.
DeleteGloaming is a pretty word, too. And the feral cat? Jesus! That must have been horrible. Of course it's better to put the animal out of its misery, no matter how you had to do it.
ReplyDeleteGloaming is my favourite. Have you heard of the band The Gloaming? Ethereal and atmospheric music.
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