Let’s Talk! – When the Hour is Hushed

This prompt from Tyrean Martinson’s book – A Pocket-Sized Jumble of Writing of 500+ Prompts –  immediately touched me in two ways. First of all, I was thinking of everybody switching off the screens at dinner time, automatically being followed by a moment of silence while the prompt is pondered and then being discussed. The second was a myriad of beautiful almost soundless pictures that swamped my mind.

When the Hour is Hushed – basically it is hushed by dwindling daylight to the point of a mere glowing blue that fades into an almost black hue of the universe with – under optimal circumstances – only the gleaming of stars, the occasional satellite crossing, and the blinking of an airplane droning above every now and then. Until that, too, stops. Not the stars and the satellites, though. I have been to such blessed places where no light pollution separates one’s mind from Nature. When you hear nocturnal creatures move through the underbrush – a cracking twig here, a soft rustle in the leaves there. When the sky seems so close to you that you seem to be able to touch eternity with your fingertips.

When the Hour is Hushed feels so different in a city; but even there it softly encroaches on one’s home, on one’s garden. On sunny days, it begins with an incredible sundown that has people watch instead of talking. That has them take a break from whatever task they might have wanted to finish, just to stare in wonder and joy. You might hear cicadas pick up their song in some areas. Or swifts and house martins sweep through the air with their piercing little shrieks, chasing insects before they find home into their nests. The shadows in one’s backyard are growing longer and deeper. A late squirrel rushes past, retrieving the day’s last acorn to its abodes somewhere up in the trees. A moon sickle might appear somewhere in the sky, followed by other planets.

If you are living on top of a hill, you might watch as the nearest village or small-town in the valley turns into an accumulation of dots of lights, the towers of churches turning into darker silhouettes against a still lighter blue sky. The fields on the hills take on a more saturated hue of the color they showed during the day. Maybe, a deer emerges at the verge of the adjoining woods to graze. Some birds chirp softly after their evensong before they fall asleep. A crow hurries home through the dusky air. A V of geese honks higher up to reach their waterhole for the night.

Then silence. Even traffic comes to a halt. Almost. Somebody hurries home or to their late shift – you don’t even wonder. The silence is as soft as velvet, as soothing as a loving hand. It’s time to ponder the day. To be grateful for what was. To lay to rest what can’t be solved today.

When the Hour is Hushed, it seems as if time were standing still if for the lasting. It grants us that moment to be one with Nature. Before we set our alarm clocks and are aware that time is flying, and we ought to go to bed to prepare for the rush of another day.