Gusty nights in late Autumn have a kind of magic to them. It’s the sort where, past the bitter bone-creaking cold, one can feel it in the atmosphere.

Staring across a field into a copse of trees in a world illuminated by the light of cities reflected off of low, sweeping clouds that threaten snow is a wonderful thing. It’s a run-on sentence, but sometimes you need to encapsulate thoughts in stupid ways.

Looking off into that bunch of trees one gets a distinctive and empowering feeling. It’s the feeling that anything can happen; that anything could be happening. It pierces deep into the psyche, so deep I think, that many people simply notice that the world feels different and move on, though there may be some virtue to an analysis.

Imagine yourself sitting outside at 8:43 PM on a late October evening, the temperature is falling and the wind chill rising. The world around you is dry, dark, and filled with a sighing wind that wanders between gentle breezes and forceful blasts. You watch the world shiver around you to the beat of the wind’s song, and pull tighter into your hooded sweater and jacket.

Somewhere in the distance a bird takes flight, silhouetted against the reddish sky it flutters and twirls like a deranged moth. Only you and it appreciate the difficulty of its nighttime journey. A rabbit comes into view a few hundred yards away. It digs and picks for a moment in the temporarily slack breeze – a gust shoves you hard from the back and the rabbit is gone, running to escape God’s cold breath.

All the while the world keeps getting colder. Leaves fall in an infinite march from their long-held homes to the sacred earth. Bare trees stand jealous of the loss they have endured; wizened by their loneliness. Winter is absolutely on the air, but is held at bay.

In this magical night where anything could occur beyond the nearest tamed forest, the guardians of seasons fight, but Autumn has not yet fallen, and Winter shall not yet win.