Midnight’s Rainbow

---11.18.1999---

I know I jump from one subject to another, and this is all kind of bit by bit, and I know I’ve mentioned it before, but... It’s so unimaginably beautiful here at night, and so varied. While the other night was spooky, dark, and windy, tonight is quietly beautiful. It’s the first relatively clear night we’ve had in a while. The night before last was absolutely lights-out, bag-over-your-head black. Tonight the moon is shining down through the clouds, soft, gray, and cold, a haunting light, a light that makes you feel the moon is watching, seeing through you and your intentions, drawing you out, naked. And all of the little houses sit very prim, very quiet, and still. And the whole landscape, the whole scene tries—really tries—hard to be good.

I’ll see if I can describe more. I’m outside now and have taken the laptop with me. I’m sitting under a rock called “The Nag’s Head.” It’s a natural standing stone, one part of which looks like the head of an old woman. The screen is obscenely bright and drowns out my view of the landscape. So I tilt it towards me and it illuminates the keyboard.

I’m trying to type now with fuzzy gloves on against the cold and feeling like a large Muppet, my back to the Nag. Boulders jut out of the moss to my left, frozen in place as they tried long ago to scurry past. The moss runs across to neighboring pastures and down long, gray slopes towards towering rocks, all jagged and weather-worn. This black island and its secrets lie silhouetted against the lit patchwork of the shimmering sea. When the moon shows its face from behind the clouds, this landscape, a faint, dark, primeval beauty, changes in a transient rush. Now appears a dusty, chalky-white night and I’m transported—wait—please... as if on another planet, a voyager. As I sit quietly and scan the terrain ticking off messages home, the illusion carries across plains named very long ago. But time means little now. This same magic night, this same nocturnal dawn, this transformed landscape and cold were experienced by the shadowy figures that lived here long ago. That shared experience creates a connection that bridges thousands of years. There’s an intimacy to it. The same Nature that held them now holds me. It saw them, and their lives, and listened, as it sees me now, alone on a hillside, black parka illuminated and slick by the light of the screen, marveling, trying to describe, searching for words that no matter how great could never do any of it justice. It sees me sitting in a landscape of quiet and dreaming, as rabbits run in their sleep.

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I set off for a third time tonight, donned in full waterproofs because the rain was coming down, for a late walk to Gugh with Phillip. When we arrived though, the bar was almost submerged, ruling out the idea. Instead we settled for half a lap around St. Agnes. There is something greatly humbling, yet emboldening, about walking around the island in the rain, late at night. I hear her say, “Come, walk my rutty paths. Let those souls lost at sea, entrusted to me, whisper to you as you trod o’er their graves. Climb my rocks by the light of the moon. Let your torches rest, and admire me this late hour, for you do not know when you will chance this way again.” And we did. We admired her, her organ fields, her pale, translucent grace, and walked on through clear night and rain.

Coming around the western side of the island, through the remains of ancient stone hedges and formidable outcroppings, I had the overwhelming sensation I was on the moon. The quality of light was the same. The plains and rocks appeared equally so. I surveyed the scene and then saw something I’d never seen before in my life. It took me a while to even recognize what it was. Curving over the island was a pale arc of light. The moon was sitting low and clear on the horizon behind us and, by its light, formed a ghostly, white rainbow across the night sky. We both stared in amazement at a phenomenon we had never even known existed.

I felt thankful, chosen, like Nature had taken a notice of us and blessed us with one of her secrets. Then we walked the muddy farm track home, as the rain picked up again. I came in, wrote this account, and called it a night, a good night indeed.