stationary humming moon

There is something beautiful in the way a streetlight lights up so slowly, with a greenish or pinkish glow that grows brighter, against a twilit sky.

And in the way you can see the snow fall on a dark night, only in the beam of a streetlight.

The winter nights of my childhood were lit by one streetlight, the one across the road. Like a stationary moon, it was always there. I was alternately annoyed by the way it dimmed the stars and comforted by its protection against darkness.

I like the way streetlights hum. The way some of them swing on stormy evenings. The way they form a string of glowing pearls from a distance. The way they can make something ordinary or frightening look like a fairytale. Even the way they can make an empty night-time road cold and lonely like a nightmare.