Northern Lights
Northern Lights
There is this presence, which known once cannot again be forgotten. The very thought or whisper of light upon a cool midnight breeze. I feel it now, as beside the dying embers of the camp fire I lay. That tingling expectancy; it calls me in a language unspoken of by man, yet understood in the deepest recesses of our souls. "Come" it murmurs - so I come.
I rise, softly from my place, careful lest I wake my companions from their sleep, and steal quietly from the ember-lit clearing. Under the trees and away, to the North I walk as if I had tread this path many times, though it is being but new drawn in my mind. One step at a time I discover it as I am led on. The whispers in the air quicken me onward "Come" they call with wondering and bated breath. The awe of their thoughts fills me and my tread becomes silent upon the new fallen snow.
Forward, never slacking and always straight ahead I walk, beneath trees and across frozen streams, through paths of waning moonlight. The moon will be setting soon, its crescent scythe vanishing below the forest horizon. I know I must get where I am going - though where that is I know not yet - before the moon is set. Swiftly then, I thread my way through the never-ending forest, passing here the imprint of an elk's hoof in the snow and there the tell-tale signs of a bear's claws on the side of a tree. The night is cold and tho' my breath fogs thick upon the air I am not chilled. The call stirs warm within me; I may not tarry.
Suddenly and with a silence that seems to steal my breath the whispering call in my mind ceases. I halt find myself standing near the center of a clearing in these woods. Looking up I can see the stars, in all their splendor and brilliance, shining like ten thousand candles in the velvety blue curtain of the midnight sky. To the West the barest tip of the moon's crescent can be seen above the tree tops. It will not be long now. I seat myself on a snow-clad log and wait.
Perhaps I doze, I do not know, but one moment the sky is filled with naught but stars, and the very next I see a bar of light sway and spread above me. It is blue, with tinges of a fiery green, and it moves with the perfect, graceful cadence of a dancer, unrolling itself like a scroll made of the very essence of magic and wonder. Beside it there appears another pillar of light, but this one purple with hues of pink on her crown. They move, weaving in and out of one another and fading as the other brightens only to fade again. And their sides ripple as if they were the waters of a great fall which the wind blew to make dance. Or rather the lights – now three! - are the cords of rainbow harps played by invisible hands. A melody of lights whispers across the sky above me, in more colors and hues than I can comprehend. Of yellow and purple, vivid green and bright, ocean-like blue. They are numberless now, the sable bars of liquid glory - of shining song.
Their innumerable hues blend in a fiery rainbow which stretches across the sky. They move like marching columns of an army, an army of light. The peaks of the tallest mountains in the distance reflect the lights splendor back at them like the cry of a rising trumpet. They call, back and forth to each other, their voices silent yet like shouts of angels singing "Hallelujah!" into the still air above the sleeping forest. I gaze at them, into them, watching with wonder and bated breath as they dance and sing, play and ripple across the starry heavens. Then, at last, they slowly begin to fade, one by one winking out like pillars of candlelight, until their remains but the first, waiting to be last. He moves: back and forth he dances across the sky as if searching for his missing fellows. Then, with the first rays of dawn on the Eastern mountain-tops he fades from view and the stars are all that remain in the waking heavens.
After a time spent in wondering and deep, celestial thoughts, I rise from my place and turning slowly, begin my walk back to the place from whence I came. Scarce do I go three paces into the forest when I espy, out of the corner of my eye, a figure in the shadows. I halt, suddenly, and turn to face the man. He steps from the shadows and I recognize his face as one of my fellow campers whom I thought I had left sleeping in the clearing back there. Neither of us speaks for a little while until, at last, he murmurs in a low, far away voice,
"You saw them too?"
I pause and then with a small, wonder-filled smile I nod my head. He too smiles and as we turn to walk back to the place from whence we have come no more words are exchanged. It is enough to look at each other's faces and into each other's eyes. We know what we have seen this night, and we will remember it, for many years to come.
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Ever since I was a little girl it's always been my wish to see the Aurora Borealis. I appreciate this short story so much because it creates such a sensational picture of my dream. I can't thank you enough for that! :')
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