Twilight Hour, Bulba

The flaming sun has sunk to rest in a blaze of splendour, bidding a genial goodnight after a long hot day. And now comes the twilight hour when trees and landscapes and all material objects stand out in bold relief. Every limb and leaf are clearly defined through a grey-blue atmosphere. There is just sufficient caress in the breeze to give a gentle sway to the top most boughs and a tiny rippling motion to the leaves. Doleful crows are hastening homewards after a long day's foraging, while high overhead plane the swallows in graceful sequence. An early bat is on the wing, and a silent shadow of feathered fleetness proves the first 'mo-poke' awake for the night's repast. Two kookaburra's sit in a near-by eucalypt and laugh heartily at the approach of night. 'Soldier' birds still chatter in the tree tops, but the noisy young magpies and pee-wee's are silent, and their parents must be glad of the respite in the search for food to satisfy them.

A prolonged note, and the quiet of the evening has been broken by the orchestra of crickets, and the croak of frogs in the swamp. With the fading light comes the first of the kangaroo rats to feed at the cottage, and all goes peacefully till the corn begins to give out. The general grunting and fighting thereafter denotes the survival of the fittest!

"Rastus'' has paid one of his rare visits from the bush as the darkness descends, and his peculiar cluck-cluck-clucking is his evening love song to 'Bess' the pet wallaby. A pair of pretty kingfishers have ceased their divings from the jetty rail, having laboured unceasingly on behalf of their nestlings throughout the day. It is now too dark to write outdoors, and while I light the lamp there is a steady padded tread on the iron roof. 'Tommy' a silver grey o'possum has taken up his usual elevated post, till I hunt him down, because there from comes my water supply The angry swish of the lake waters on the shore of the Island caused by the nor' easterly has become a gentle laving as the darkness deepens, and the first stars begin to appear. A soothing tranquilness gives the physical body a subtle ease from the labours of the day, while the mental faculties quicken to the evening mysteries of nature.

It is the glorious hour of twilight

When humans from their labour rest,

An hour of calm and sweet reflection

E’re falls the curtain of the night.

Thompson Noble

21.11.1932.

This work by Lake Macquarie City Library is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License