Twilight

  My favourite time of the day is, without question, the time after sunset and before nightfall: evening or twilight. (Twilight can also refer to the time just before sunrise,  but I'm hardly ever up that early, so I won't talk about that.)
   It's the time when the day cools down and when the stars begin to appear.  Familiar landscapes assume a mysterious air and  lights turn on in buildings, so that even the drabbest of edifices begin to look like faery palaces,  aglow with lambent lights.  It's as if for a few brief minutes,  two different worlds are intersecting,  one our mundane reality,  and the other a realm of wonders.
    I've experienced twilight in the lakes of Northern Ontario.  It is something to hear the cry of the loon across the stillness of an evening lake,  and to walk through the trees of a darkening forest.  It's in the twilight that I wonder at the immensity of that primeval forest, which stretches from the cities of  Southern Ontario to the frozen desolation of the tundra, hundreds of miles to the north.
    Twilight in the city is something else entirely.  During the day the city is loud and garish and crowded.  At night it can be equally loud,  but often too quiet and dangerous.  The twilight is the best time.  Walking along the streets of a large city in a summer's evening makes me forget the grime of the streets and the heat of the day, and transports me for a little while into a city of enchantment.  I well remember walking along Broadway  during the dusk.  New York City was  then like the fabled cities of the great fantasy epics,  a city of illimitable vistas and marvels.
     Everything assumes different contours in the twilight.  I spoke of the intersection of two different worlds. I don't believe that is just a passing fancy.  I do believe that the evening time foreshadows the transition to another, much greater world.  It is a symbol of the junction of our world and this other world.  That's when things that are familiar become vessels of splendour,  showing glimpses of something far greater than we could ever imagine.
     In the twilight you can reflect on the day that has departed and make plans for the day to come.  What a privilege it is to be able to do that as the sunlight slowly fades,  and  the stars begin to shine in the darkening sky.
     Those are some reasons why I love the twilight. What is your favourite time of the day?