The Interval of Amber

The sun retreats into the copper rim of the hills, spilling a bruised lavender across the valley floor. The shadows stretch, thin and long-fingered, grasping at the fading heat of the stones.

There is a silence that belongs only to this hour, where the cicadas hold their breath in the thicket and the wind slows to a whisper of resin and pine. The world is a glass bowl, held in a trembling hand.

One star pricks the veil, a needle of cold silver, stitching the seam between the visible and the void. We are suspended in the interval of amber, waiting for the dark to claim what the light has left.