An Antique Light Nighthawk

Vol. 134, January 7th, 2025 Published a day early online

Antique Light

Saturday afternoon drew down, quiet, hushed, cold. Somewhere there were cities with lights, bartenders polishing glasses, and cabbies readying for the nightlife, but here, only a sparrow cheeped from the brush, trying to stay warm.

I walked through the hayfield down to the creek. The sun graced the scene with vintage golden rays, a gift of a good day, already nearly a memory. Somehow, the precious light seemed to turn the landscape into an antique photograph.

Summer is too busy to notice, with cicadas and grasshoppers and the ceaseless growing of green things. But the winter, like an old photo, things are reduced to their essence. Pine. Grass. What it feels like to have the cold air bite your face, a reminder of where you are (here).

Apple Orchard Mountain loomed blue in the distance. You can see it when the leaves are down. Long Mountain collected little shadows around her skirts, calling the nighttime home for dinner. I reached the creek, springing eternally from the east, flowing endlessly to the west, reflecting a few rays of the sun doing the same. Some ice froze with the mud, a Rothko on the ground.

I headed back home, and ate some cold sauerkraut, somehow perfect. Keep an eye out for the antique light.

The Winter Refuge

Loblolly pines stand tall by the creek in the golden light of a winter afternoon. My shadow takes a picture.

Book of the Week

That Hideous Strength (C.S. Lewis) The stunning conclusion to a theological science fiction trilogy, it brings an appreciation for ordinary life and good people.

“I Spy With My Little Eye”

Galileo spots Jupiter’s moons tonight, 1610. Their Jovian orbit would upend geocentric views.

Sketch from Galileo’s notebook showing the changing orbits of “Medicean Stars”, flattering the Medici family of Florence.

Carol’s Appalachian Word of the Week

Rurnt (ruined). “Them crops was purely rurnt by that storm!”

Quote of the Week

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.”

–Gandhi

Write to Us!

The Nighthawk is a new old-fashioned way to connect, published weekly. You’re invited to write back, or just enjoy reading. Let’s have some fun! It’s a social paper! Send stories, etc to: PO Box 783, Rustburg, VA 24588 or Joshurban@protonmail.com

Letters from Josh

(A weekly update from Josh Urban’s adventures on the farm and in the city. #219)

Appearing in the Altavista Journal, etc: Piney Fresh

Howdy, folks, and welcome back to the show! Yesterday morning was warm, for winter, so off I went, outside, away from the screens and phones, across the fields and along the forest.

Being a musician and astronomer, I’m often awake when the world slumbers. A walk in the winter woods has the same feeling. If the land sleeps in January, the pine trees are the nightlights. Not quite the tint of spring, they still keep the idea of green around. A candle reminds us of the sun at midnight.

Four types of pine grow on the farm: Virginia, Loblolly, White, and Shortleaf.

I met the last first, standing tall and neat–like my brother. People will often mistake me for another Urban, until they see us side-by-side. “Oh.”

“Yeah man, he’s got a tie.”

The Shortleaf pine, while lacking festive neck-wear, is clean-cut, and loves fire. The flames from a lightning strike or a forester’s match burn away the competition, and can help the seeds germinate. You might have a house or floor made from the lumber. It’s sometimes called Yellow pine (along with the Loblolly pine). A naturalist showed me how to ID one by noticing the tiny resin pockets on the bark. I looked at a fine specimen standing guard at the corner of the bee field, said hello, and walked on.

A little ways up, past the sleeping hives, a thick stand of Virginia pine held the rocky hillside together. They’re some of the first trees to grow in an abandoned field or cut, and have a scrappy, can-do attitude to match their nearly lime-green needles. These are the cheery pioneers. I broke a branch off a long-dead log, and scraped it with a knife. Sure enough, fatwood: sap pooled back near the trunk when the tree died years ago. It’s an excellent fire starter, a hidden gift of the forest.

Down near the railroad track, a slender White pine sprang up, scarred from a buck. I think it’ll be okay. We don’t have many on the mountain, but they always remind me of boyhood visits to my grandmother. Her suburban backyard somehow wound up with a grove of them, and I’d climb up and up, past where I should stop. The north wind lived up there. Easing back down, I’d join my brothers in her art room. She’d help us clean our sappy hands with turpentine. A white pine always brings me back.

The Loblolly pines grow in a stand down by the creek, with long fine needles, a rugged bark, and towering frame. I’ll stop by in the summer to snag some fallen needles for the bee smoker, pausing to relish the hush. Now, it’s a windbreak from the cold. The neighbor has acres for timber, but the ones by the creek somehow avoided cattle and chainsaw. The owls call them home.

Soon the growing will return, and the world will wake, but for now, the green belongs to the evergreens, keeping watch through the long night. Give ‘em a nod on your next walk, or as you fly by on the highway, piney fresh.

Catch you on the flip side,

Josh