Woods in the Moonlight
The area we were in, behind the barn and south of the manor house and graveyard was virgin timber, having escaped the laborer's ax when Sedgefield was first built. A distance of some five hundred yards wide, and as many or more in length was covered with forest, thick underbrush, grass and flowers. This spread, or cover was punctuated by trees, whose girth in some instances attained fifteen feet, with diameters at eye level of four feet, while their branches rose perhaps a hundred and twenty five feet in the air. Oak, pecan, hickory, magnolia, sugar hackberry, ash, juniper, and pine were but a few among the many varieties gracing the skyline, and their positions in relation to each other and the heather was most beautiful, for outstretched pourings of molten moonlight silhouetted so very softly an impassive stand of dominant trees, while splashing through loose nets of skittering clouds, that the articulation of its speech and the beauty of the remarks it gently pronounced gave homage to the forest it spoke of (illumined). Massive strengths and unrelenting power were superimposed on a glistening pallet of soft feminine meadow, so that the visual artistry with which nature selected her comparisons was evidenced by a blunting of the powerful, while simultaneously overstating the lush carpet of saplings and bushes on the forest floor. Thus the disparity of dimension or shapes was gradually melded; the masculine carefully cast beside the finest wisps of most delicate detail where they lay comfortably together, each complimenting the other.
I was especially impressed by the diversification of flora in the area as evidenced by the endless varieties represented that, grouping together, produced a dense proliferation of ground cover. Supplementing the list of trees and shrubs mentioned earlier, I found sweet gum, sapling fruit woods, kudzu, mimosa, elm, and it seemed now that a sylvan collage of branches, flowers, bits of stone and sod were almost hung on vines at the horizon's edge, supporting both sides of the sky, while Lady Sedgefield at stage center, clothed in the garb of a thicket nymph, modeled her timeless wardrobe with such touching mood and graceful sensitivity, displaying her verdant fashions against the blue-black hues of the deep, that the magnitude of physical components, abounding in the magnificent primeval forest, with its elegant and princely verdure and the delicacy of its demure asides, produced what seemed like a visual orchestral suite, a compelling array of beauty. It was quite dark now and images and contours appeared bolder when framed in the umber mantle of dusk, while on the ground, craggy undulations appeared augmented and exaggerated. The dark, rich loam sustained flowers of unbesmirched virtue that competed successfully, one against the other, for the excellence of their expressiveness, as well as grasses and leaves, and the effect was not unlike that of a moist, sculptured carpet. Subtle flowering shrubs, like smouldering emeralds, and molten garnets as blooms en stalk, bled their chromatic clusters of catalytic color into a soft molded creek bank, while branches, brambles, and knobby, wrinkled roots projected rough and unforgiving aspects of stoic power and solemn majesty. As the crimson, pink and fresh blue and yellow shades of color became soft and malleable, artfully seasoning the wash of sun and moon during their dusky afternoon encounter, quietly settling in their sap green stalks and stems, they secured in my memory an uncontested paragon of merit, to me representing the very pinnacles of grace, charm and natural loveliness. Much like fine wine complimenting with its fruitful bouquet and delicate body, fond embers from an eventful days remembrance distilled, the blossoms dealt in nature's truths peaking with elusive understatement, speaking with sensual warmth and shining with spotless clarity in the primitive elegance of their rustic mountings, and while they, like buoys on an inland sea, listed, bending discreetly in the gentle wind, they bid me enter their resplendent floral hovel, lower my sail on their deck of dreams and slumber the night in its generous folds.
It was now two hours shy of the bewitching hour, and on the horizon just above the tops of larger trees, the tips of crystal stars shone through the ebony backdrop of deeper space, and served to punctuate the gentle rhetoric of the expansive nocturnal quarto. The drama of dark, lush forest, the placating expanse of ambient moonlight, and the confluence of thousands of stars flourished in the wake of time's progressive arch, surfacing as flecks of ice in the moon's lagered path.
... Excerpt 4, Depravity's Shattered Seeds