the wind

The night was velvety and liquid. It lapped gently against the cheeks like cloth, then it receded with a sigh and could be heard swaying in the trees. Stars filled the sky. They were no longer the stars of winter, separate, brilliant. They were like fish spawn. There was no longer any form in the world, not even of adolescent things. Nothing but milk: milky buds, milky seeds in the earth, the sowing of creatures, and star milk in the sky. The trees had the strong odour of the time when they are in love ... The wind was speaking. It was a milky wind like the rest. It was full of shapes, full of images, of gleams, of lights, of flames that did not illumine a centimeter of the earth but lit up the whole interior of one's being.

-- Jean Giono Joy of Man's Desiring
Translated by Katherine Allen Clarke