The harsh reality of the farm disappeared. For some reason, and I do not know why, all of the effort, the relentless labor, was worth seeing from this angle on the evening porch. If there was sweat and endless task, and everything we did was priced cheap and unappreciated, it did not matter. Healed we were by those starlike glints of the neighborhood, the home constellations. The world, of course, is different now.
Night is no longer safe.
As if Creation isn't generous enough with a long summer day, here, the most overworked and universally abused penitent in the economy is still working because mercury vapor makes it possible. Vapor lights might not be so hideous, so cruel and despoiling of agriculture's best product, were they equipped with a switch. They are not. Instead, a photocell on the approach of shade closes the circuit. Never mind that the sky is only the gloaming, the prettiest hue this side of lingerie.