Off topic (sorry): Sadly, I have lost the poem I wrote that was inspired by a fall night on a mountaintop, but I will share the experience.
In late fall many years ago I backpacked up Hurricane Mountain (3694') in the Adirondacks. I pitched my tent in the trees a short distance from the summit. I was not prepared for how cold it got that night. After doing everything I could to get warm in my tent and shivering for a couple of hours, I gave up, packed my sleeping back in my backpack, and headed up the trail to the summit. In those days, we didn't have headlamps and lanterns like today. I lit my way with a candle. At the top I hunkered down out of the wind between some rocks, pulled my sleeping bag around me, and looked up at the sky. Sleep was out of the question, so I looked at the sky all night. So far from city lights, the stars were brilliant and I watched them turn about the sky all night. I've rarely seen such a bright sky. Many hours later a thin ring of light appeared on the horizon and slowly grew into a wider band. Finally it illuminated all the foliage in the valley below the mountain.
I never forgot this experience. It shook me up existentially. It taught me that beauty is always available to us, even in the midst of hardship, if we're willing to seek it, and that to be amazed and delighted takes effort but is well worth it. I still live by these principles today.
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