Night never leaves the Atchafalaya, she just lies up through the heat of the day, same as the rest of the swamp creatures.  Live in the swamp long enough, you'll see her pooled in the deep cypress groves or hiding out in the black depths of a mangrove ticket, patient and sure, biding her time.  Now and then, you'll catch a glimpse of her in mid-day, in the wind-driven shudder of a palmetto leaf or in the languid dapple of Spanish moss, draping the trees like cast-off wedding finery, ivory veils aging slowly to an antique gray.  Then the sun starts down.  Slowly, imperceptibly, night takes hold.  She steals invisibly across the water, like smoke; she spills out from the wells of shadow beneath our houses.  Night's like love.  She creeps in and takes possession of everything you ever knew or hoped to know without so much as a by-your-leave.  She takes dominion of your heart before you ever know she's there.
-Dale Bailey, from The Census Taker (The Resurrection Man's Legacy, p 164)