The Magic Hour The magic hour for photo seekers: late afternoon, as the low sun presses its slanted light across the ridge, teasing the leaves, layering rose and red against the hushed fields. My shaggy lawn gleams velvet and lush in this moment; the elm’s branches arch like the arms of a dancer, rising on hidden toes, closed eyes tipped toward the warmth, body slim and muscled. The white iris blushes and bends. Cool shadows stretch from cedar and oak, from maple and elder, from ash and torn-open roses. In the morning, there were lists and problems, plans; now the magic hour dispels them. My human scraping, tiny compared to this flood of transformation, this glow, this othering which rinses even me; which washes even me; which for a long hour of magic dissolves my shames to gratitude, tender and fragile as long-legged crickets, leaping in the wide forgiving field.
Beth Kanell lives in northeastern Vermont, with a mountain at her back and a river at her feet. She’s a published poet, novelist, historian, and memoirist, and shares her research and writing process at BethKanell.blogspot.com.
Amethyst Review 