Nachttocht -

At the ridge, you stop. The village below is a scatter of sugar cubes, each window a weak star. You do not go down. Not yet.

Somewhere left, a fox cuts a seam through the bracken. Somewhere right, the river talks to itself in vowels you almost understand. nachttocht

Instead, you stand until your spine becomes a question mark, until the cold is a second skin, until the first herringbone of dawn stitches the east. At the ridge, you stop

The moon is a sliver of chipped ice, hung low over the heath. Your boots know the way before your eyes do: peat, root, the soft give of sand. At the ridge