There's something magical about the way the sun sinks lower and lower in the sky. Maybe it's the way the beams of light are cast about in a last and desperate attempt to illuminate the world; or maybe it's the way the sun dyes the clouds golden and lilac and candy floss pink; or maybe it's the way the colours bleed into each other until the sky has blended the hues together into a dark, inky black.

And now the night is a canvas – a black canvas to be painted on with splatters of lights and silver stars and flashing neon street signs.

The cities are crawling with life: full of movement and noises and streaks of bright colours. But the loud colours, the obnoxious neon lights leading the way to nightclubs thumping out muffled music – they hide the muddy splotches that are so easily overlooked in a painting, divert your attention from the dark alleyways full of stinking rubbish and men half-drunk into oblivion, muffle the screams and shouts of relationships being slowly torn apart.

Hidden in the murky orange glow of streetlights are blocks of houses, identical in the darkness. Silver moonlight saturates everything, softening out harsh edges and washing the world in a cool, refreshing wave. It's like someone's cast a spell and frozen this moment in time, and it's beautiful, in its own ethereal way.

There's a moment just before the stars emerge and the sun leaves to warm another part of the Earth – a moment where everything just stops for the time it takes to blink, where the whole world holds its breath–

and then an exhale is let out, and the houses spread across the hills blink on their lights one at a time, dotting the land with yellow pinpricks.

And the stars are watching over all this time, waiting for the sun to be completely gone before coming out and splattering the sky with their faint, flickering lights. One could almost say the night sky is like sprinkling glitter on a piece of black paper – a long, clustered streak across the middle of the page; and then a few clusters at the corners and the edge of the paper, so they won't feel left out; an accidental dump of silver at the top – but it's left alone, because it looks better with it there, and the moon needs to be represented somehow anyway.

The stars are begging to be played with, to be rearranged into shapes, to be connected into images by imaginary lines. And the moon – the moon watches over them like a kindly caretaker making sure every child is looked after and loved.

When even the city has stilled somewhat and everyone has gone to bed, that's when the night-dwellers start their show: owls hoot while swooping along the night breeze, wolves sing out their mournful stories, crickets play symphonies in grassy fields. It's like the night's own unique song – a blend of melodies and harmonies, a mix of tones and timbres, all to create an organised messy masterpiece.

And when the sun announces its arrival from the other side of the horizon, its light paints the sky in soft watercolours, the colours brightening from black to gray to pastel blues and purples and pinks. The morning sweeps in with faint light and high-pitched birdsong and a layer of dew.

And it's a fresh new canvas all over again.