Another 5-Mile Radius post

My favorite bog after the heat and humidity of a summer day.

I arrive at the bog just as the sun reaches tree tops of a tamarack island. For a brief moment the light turns golden and sharp. The sun highlights grasses, throwing long warm waves across the sedges, and bursts into a sunstar through the trees. Brilliant rays reach across shadowed grasses beckoning my attention.

There is a quiet excitement in these moments. Frogs begin chanting. A few birds offer their final songs of the day. Crickets are tuning their instruments in the grasses. The orchestra is warming up.

I place the tripod and camera in the grass. Sipping coffee, I dissolve into the sounds of the bog and surrounding woods. Behind me, somewhere in the distance, a barred owl calls.

The day’s heat surrenders to the coming night. The landscape softens and the edges of the bog blur into margins. Twilight deepens.

Cool fragrant air brushes my skin as the bog starts to breathe.

High in the western sky, first lights of evening appear. Venus and Jupiter emerge from a transparent blue sky. Above them, on a diagonal, are Pollux and Castor, stars of Gemini.

The waiting begins – for what I came for.

A few minutes pass. Then a flicker. A single point of yellow-green fluorescence sparks among the sedges.

A firefly! Then another, and another.

Soon dozens of tiny lanterns are twinkling above the bog, answering the stars overhead. As if on cue, the fog arrives. It rises first in the distance, like apparitions hovering above the bog, then slowly drifts across the grasses towards me.

For a brief moment, everything comes together. The last glow of sunset. The first lights from planets and stars. The flickering lanterns of fireflies. The slow tide of fog. The sounds of nature.

And here I am, with a camera and a cup of coffee. And enough presence to witness it. How fortunate. Earth is an amazing place.

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