If this were my first dawn here, I might startle at the white faces in the darkness: snakeroot. The familiar cries of a bird I cannot name.
A warm night. With no inversion layer, dawn comes quietly except for the ever-present crickets. A patter of rain approaches and retreats.
5:30. The black cat is only distinguishable by its movement up the driveway, and only if I focus a little to the side. The sound of engines.
Clear, cold. The flare of a satellite is an omen: the sun will rise. CERN has so far failed to birth a black hole. Random chirps.
Thunderstorms since before dawn. Light comes in sudden, brief installments that freeze the raindrops falling from the roof—eyes in the dark.
In the chill of dawn, sounds come as if from a great distance: wood thrush chirping, crow calls, wren twitter, the Monday whine of traffic.
Still, clear, 50°F. The sunlight spreading into the treetops is noisy with bluejays calling “Hey! Hey!”—or more likely, “Acorns! Acorns!”
Hundreds of miles to the southeast, a hurricane churns. I sit in the dark listening to scattered rain, a faint rustle of a breeze, crickets.
The brown towers of dock seed below the railing tremble in sequence: a warbler in its fall plumage, a safe and anonymous greenish yellow.
At half-light, the scattered calls of migrant wood thrushes, dropping into the trees from their all-night flights and looking for breakfast.
The rending of a limb or small tree down in the hollow, followed by… nothing. A phoebe sings a few bars of his old song and falls silent.
In from the porch, I open a window to hear the crickets. Golden light spreads across the field. A series of heavy thumps under the floor.
A cool, clear autumn morning. Every few minutes, another alarm call breaks the silence: pileated woodpecker. Bluejays. A frantic squirrel.
5:00 am; the stars are bright….
5:00 am; the stars are bright. Orion straddles the ridge, and as I watch, a meteor streaks from his belt. A small, dark moth circles my face.