Stars At Night

 







It’s very quiet at the Chicken Ranch tonight. There’s only a chilly, gentle breeze that urges a whisper from the cedars. A small string of lights on a young tree by the gazebo flickers in the wind and cast tiny dancing shadows over grass and stones. The recent rains have subsided and the darkened sky is resplendent, as occasional steam kettle clouds caress the faces of the stars and glide silently by. Off in the distant fields, Coyotes are singing a Christmas song in a not so harmonious and yet somehow pleasant chorus. It fades away as the coy dogs continue north on their hunt. I love standing here on my back porch, while the cacophony of daily bustle is absent, just taking in the evening.

Here, on this evening as Christmas approaches, I pull my big-hat a little tighter to my head and turn my coat collar up so its fleece can oppose the cold. Our Chocolate Labrador, Hershey, clears his throat with a stifled bark to ask me if everything is okay. And then, satisfied, returns to his straw bed and wraps himself in the warmth and smell of wheat stubble. Leaning on the porch rail I drink in a deep breath and enjoy the clean oxygenated freshness of the night.

Only a few night birds in the woods now interrupt the silence. There’s no sign of the raccoons that have used the yard as a nightly playground recently or the owl that sits and warms in the ancient maple tree near the fireplace chimney. They’ll be along before the night is over, but I’ll miss their visit. I’m soon heading back to my fireside chair. I’ll stop first in the kitchen to make a couple of mugs of hot chocolate for me and my bride. The sweet warmness of the drink, topped off with marshmallow cream, is a pleasure we enjoy oft on winter evenings.

I take one more look at the winter sky and am appreciative of its constancy. Few things there are in this life that you can count on to be with you always. The moon and stars drifting in their place every night are a real and solid comfort. As I head in, I do feel comfort on this crisp winter eve, here on my back porch. It’s a comfort to know that natures’ nightlights will be present in the heavens tomorrow evening when I come to call….and every evening for as long as God needs them. And there is no comfort after all that can match the comfort that is of Heaven.

I well know that it is not the same all over the world, but I think to myself, “for this night of the Christmas season, here at the Chicken Ranch, there is Peace on Earth”. The storm door hinge complains a little as I enter the house. I fasten the latch, and while I hang up my hat on the peg, I whisper a barely audible “ and for this winters night I thank you Lord”. Dec 2011