Sunrise sky like an illuminated manuscript: that blue, that gold leaf. The red squirrel pokes its head out of its hole in the black locust behind the spinghouse to give everything a resounding scold.
sunrise
Deep cold. Somewhere up on the ridge, an oak’s icy heartwood goes off like a gun. Ten minutes before sunrise, the eastern sky turns blood-red. A Carolina wren offers the briefest of commentaries.
Cold, windy, and mostly clear for the hour between sunrise and the actual appearance of the sun. Wriggling my fingers for warmth, I watch a small cloud acquiring a glow as it sails off east.
Blue sky, orange clouds, and the temperature so far below freezing, the slightest breeze turns my cheeks numb. After a while I notice the complete absence of squirrels.
A wedge of blue sky opens at sunrise. Four pileated woodpeckers in the hollow take turns drumming, two low, two high. Half an hour later, it’s gray and quiet.
Sunrise. A spirited argument breaks out between a raven and some crows as the sky’s ephemeral pagentry fades to gray.
A wedge of yellow light in the clouds for half an hour past sunrise. I’m learning to spot when a squirrel is about to dig up a nut: it stares off into space in one last effort to convince any watcher that it’s doing something entirely different.
A hole in the clouds at dawn fails to hold the whole full moon—a brief, bright searchlight. Later, at sunrise, a chorus of chiselers as gray squirrels work on their black walnuts.
A fresh inch and a half of dry snow, and the bitter wind that bore it now ushering a flotilla of orange clouds across a sky of startling blue. From my mother’s house, the murmur of voices on the radio like a distant surf, accompanied not by the cries of gulls but the chatter of house finches.
Cold, quiet, and mostly clear for the solstice. Small clouds turn blood-red at dawn, fade to yellow, then turn a lurid orange at sunrise. A red squirrel pauses at the edge of the porch to glare at me.
A cloudless sunrise. The ground is once again white, after yesterday’s snow squalls, and it’s very still. When the wren stops singing, I can hear a low gurgle from the spring.
Sunday-morning silence deepened by fresh snow, with flakes still flurrying about. A band of orange appears in the clouds. The furnace under the house rumbles to life.
Well below freezing at sunrise. A pileated woodpecker drums as if it were already courtship season. Two squirrels briefly touch noses, then back away and resume solitary foraging.
Heavily overcast, with a brief insinuation of pink at two minutes till sunrise. The fluting of tundra swans draws my eye to a high, ragged convoy just disappearing over the ridge.