Dawn

The details of the world slowly emerge as the northeastern sky glows brighter and brighter, and all the mystery of night is drained away. Colors begin to show; the sky passes through ever paler shades of blue, green replaces black on the trees and lawns, and lines of lavender and pink streak the eastern horizon. After a stillness, the birds begin to sing. One mystery replaces another.

(no subject)

It seemed as though too little light was leaking in around the shades when I woke, and I thought it was still early morning. But it was a cloud covering the sun, and it moved aside as I opened the window to a bright afternoon. The day had turned fine and hot, and as I walked, the remaining clouds drifted further south and east, over the valley and the lake. At the end of the road, where the land drops into a side canyon that drops steeply down toward the river, I could see, beyond the treetops, the distant ridges that reach out from the mountains. It is only a narrow view, hemmed in by the nearby trees, and it has always seemed to me like a miniature, or an illustration confined on the page of a book. It is a pleasant place to stand for a while. The forest round about is full of bird songs, and butterflies flashing in the sunlight.

Later, while walking home, I watched as the high, thin clouds in the south shifted and shrank. They reminded me of the hems of breakers receding from a beach. Pausing for a moment at the edge of an open field, I saw in the distance a single hawk circling slowly against a white wave of cloud. By the time I reached my house, the clouds had all but vanished, and I sat for a while in the shade of the mulberry tree, watching that splendid blue void and listening to the fluttering of leaves in the afternoon breeze.