All in a night’s work…

It is 2:13 am. I have been lying on my back for the past several hours.

Not in bed, but in the grass.

A night sky. A crystal clear night sky.

The only unnatural light is coming from Cape Blanco Lighthouse, twenty-some miles to the south. And even then, it only blinks once every twenty seconds.

The ocean’s wave crash onto the beach only one hundred yards away. They roll up with a consistent hum – no, a consistent dull roar. The roar is broken occasionally by the call of one lonely seagull to another. An onshore breeze rustles the tall grasses.

I can smell the dying campfires mixing with the salty marine air. The wafting of slightly decayed seaweed and smaller animals on the lower side of the food chain come and go.

I can see the stars Polaris and Altair. Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Aquarius, the Milky Way. The glowing tracers of shooting stars.

The waning moon is slowly setting over the Pacific Ocean. It began its descent to the horizon as a brilliant pale silver and when it finally tucks itself into a fog bank fifty miles offshore, it will become a deep ruddy orange.