A band of dark clouds moved in about an hour before sunset. By the time the clouds had passed overhead, the sun had gone below the horizon and it touched the western edges of the remaining clouds with dull pink and fiery orange.

I went out for an evening walk, ignoring the sky, not paying attention to much of anything, lost in thought. I stopped suddenly, arrested by an intoxicating, wine-y smell. Grapevines hung from the trees overhead, and somewhere in them hung bunches of ripe, dark blue grapes.

Try as I might, I could not see any grapes; but my mouth watered from the strong smell. I looked for some minutes, as the evening grew darker and darker.

At last I gave up. I turned around to walk back, looked up, and there was the moon above the treetops: three days past new, facing the departed sun, just emerged from behind the clouds, an astonishingly bright crescent hanging in the dark blue sky.