At This Moment

On a night like tonight after a day as sunny as this one, when the air is still warm and you can walk without a jacket through the park, mounting the low hills and descending into the cool pockets of cold in the shallow valleys along their base, when the geese are flying low overhead, their bodies nearly invisible except for the pale of their bellies, which catch the last of the day's sun and glow orange as they pass overhead like slow-moving ball lightning, there is not much to do except sit on the patio and listen to the children play in the parking-lot below and the slow wane of the traffic noise from out on the street, a good, forgiving dog at your side, his chin resting on the slope of your foot, the gentle rise and fall of his breathing the perfect replacement for the crickets which will begin singing lullabies soon, although not as soon as you'd like.

After a week of beautiful Rocky Mountain weather people are already talking of spring, but Duncan and I know better. There is still all of March and April to get through, and those are Denver's two snowiest months. There will be plenty of snow to roll in and tromp through and then the low spatter of rain against the windows which will lull us into sleep. But until then there are nights like this, perfect in almost every way, and all I can do is sit and grin up at Orion, who is already slipping lower into the horizon, pat my glorious dog on his glorious head, whisper, "Good boy," to him and be thankful for what I have at this moment.