February.25

Black night bleaches out into the pale ghost of day without any sign of sunrise. A middle chunk of day happens indoors. We are in a sports hall watching out for beautiful kicks and swift punches, to put scores on fights. After the medals are all handed out and the photographs taken and the hall empties, we go outside to find sunshine filtering itself through tree shadows, lower and lower. From an A30 lay by we watch the sunset, we talk about the clouds, how the aeroplane trail has cut through them, like a plume of impact. Sinking light in the sky is red-peach and grey, colours of flowers, fruit, metals and mist. Suddenly the moon is there, and one star, and they lie side by side resembling two eyes, one is a twinkle, the other is the moon curved in a wink.