The Pines Went Quiet At Dusk

There's an hour in a pine forest, right around dusk, where everything seems to stop breathing for a minute. The wind drops. The birds settle. The light goes from gold to blue without anyone deciding.

I noticed it on a trip last October. I was sitting on a stump with a thermos, and the woods went still, and I went still with them, and I understood something I can't quite put down here.

The phrase came later. The pines went quiet at dusk, and she let them. That's the whole thing.