Of winter pale…
Winter light peels away the dark of night like one sheer black veil lifted to reveal a pale white one. Diffuse rays of pale yellow light scatter across the otherwise blue land and cityscapes and tints the underside of long charcoal and cobalt clouds pale pink and apricot in the pale blue sky. Pale light, weak light, light of the winter, light of the north brushes pastels over a wet and frozen canvas. Pale light, soft light, light of the morning, light of the rocky mountain top shines gentle brightness on crystal iridescent snow and water droplets hanging from bare branches.
Pale winter light comes in a rush and leaves in a hurry. Morning arrives heavy under a black blanket. At once the blanket lifts to grey and then as though a switch was flipped dim light tints pale color and definition through windows and along the great exterior stretches of things. Evening seems already on the heels of morning showing up mere hours later and well before 5 o’clock. The setting sun in minutes sinks and slips away pulling the cloak of night back over the once lit world. But, ah, those hours when the bright paleness shone throughout every cheerful and somber place, that’s when winter revels in itself casting a sparkled glamor on every eye that sees.
Pale light is twinkle light, it dances as it shines. Like the Pied Piper it beckons and lures the playful and whimsically inclined out, out into the heart of a winter day. The midday sun burns an endless pale warmth into the freezing winter. Everything is perfect here in the pale winter light. It’s a starlight land, an enchanted place. And like any enchantment it disappears as soon as it arrived.
I hear the pale winter light in a lonesome guitar string reverberating a twangy pitch that fades slowly and is suddenly gone. I long to hear it again, but I like that it makes me wait. It’s just enough to want more and never enough to grow tired of it. I’m hooked on the anticipation of its melody lifting phosphorescent sea foam, rose, aqua, lavender, silver, and honey swathes upon the stark white, black, gray, and blue lines etched into a winter’s day. I’m there at dawn to breathe it in and let the pale light envelope me in its woolly brilliance. In my heart I am pale, like the winter light. A little too soft, a little too lonesome, never quite enough, but resilient, faithful, and possessed of a strange enigmatic charm. And when the cold thin light reaches mildly out from all the edges I find somewhere, even if briefly, to truly belong in the winter pale.
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