Twinkling

            Yesterday I saw a flock of tiny birds emerge from the top of a tree, as scattered as bread crumbs tossed into the air (only much, much higher). They twinkled as they crossed a grey sky softly striated like spun sugar: light, dark, light, dark, like a constellation of stars.

            Twinkled? What is this word, twinkle?

            We know it in stars. Because stars twinkle, we recognize in the word not only something that rapidly changes from dark to light with a shining to it, but also something with a hint of mystery or mischief behind it, something that teases the eye and pleases the imagination.

            A lemon-yellow alder leaf falling slowly through the slanted light of an autumn morning into the swift run of the river below twinkles as it falls, now full-color-forward, now on edge, now broad again, rapidly turning, catching the sunlight, like the light of stars. Like the birds, it is a tease to vision.

            A high mountain lake, gentian blue, twinkles with sparks of silver as a wind sweeps across its surface, stars on a liquid sky.

           The glint and shimmer of metallic paint and glittered surfaces make Christmas tree ornaments twinkle in the glow of the wound-around-the-tree lights. 

         Eyes twinkle, or so we say, equating eyes with stars even though to be starry-eyed is not the same as to have a twinkle in the eye. I think the phrase is more literal than metaphorical, that some thought of mischievousness or joy actually causes the eye to sparkle with rapid movement between light and dark, the visual effect we call twinkling.

            My online dictionary, so conveniently provided by Apple, lists as synonyms of “twinkle” glitter, gleam, and glint; glimmer and shimmer, flicker and flash, sparkle and shine and wink. Except for their absence of mystery and mischief, all these words come close to meaning "twinkle" except for "wink." I take issue with “wink.” You might wink with a twinkle in your eye, but the wink is something you deliberately do, whereas the twinkle is there through thought only, not because you put it in your eye. “Gleam” and “glint” imply a longer shining than “twinkle” does. “Flash” implies a stronger nano-second of light. “Flicker” is a purely mechanical motion with no connotation of mischievousness, as in eyes that twinkle, or of distant mystery, as in stars.
            Twinkle is its own magic.