In the half hour it takes the first red cloud to become a sunrise, every crow in the area has a suggestion. Even a distant rooster weighs in.
sunrise
December 9, 2021
Hard frost. As the sky reddens, the meadow comes alive with chirps and trills. A milkweed pod’s frozen spill of gossamer.
December 3, 2021
Clouds with blue veins and sunrise bellies. Two nuthatches trade harangues. A crow summons other crows to—I’m guessing—a fresh gut pile.
November 25, 2021
No frost for the first time in weeks. Sunrise hidden by clouds, signaled by a slight brightening and a lively exchange between three nuthatches.
November 23, 2021
Clear and cold. Two nuthatches trade riffs at the edge of the woods. I watch the rising sun crest the ridge one blazing filament at a time.
November 21, 2021
Sunrise, and a contrail becomes a golden sword pointing east. The waxy chatter of goldfinches in the treetops. The silence of the factories.
November 20, 2021
A thin wash of cloud at sunrise, and the yard gray with frost. A raven flies low over the hollow giving two-syllable croaks.
November 18, 2021
The streamside barberry is orange as a hunter’s cap. A crow silhouetted against the sunrise swipes its bill on the branch as if sharpening a knife.
November 16, 2021
A wren calls under the porch. It’s five degrees below freezing. An inversion layer brings the whine of tires over the ridge, red with sunrise.
November 6, 2021
Cold and very still. Every leaf in the myrtle patch—Grandma’s legacy—is edged in white. Sunrise stains the western ridge blood-red.
November 5, 2021
A lone crow like a town crier repeating the same bit of news: how the rising sun, newly naked, is ablaze beneath the crowns of the oaks.
October 27, 2021
The slender reed of a white-throated sparrow’s voice trembles in the wind. A hole opens in the clouds, blue and sunrise pink.
October 20, 2021
Sunrise inches forward, chirp by chirp: towhee, white-throated sparrow. A rabbit gazes at me from the end of the porch with eyes dark as cisterns.
October 18, 2021
Sunrise. Fingers of orange light through orange leaves. After the furnace cycles off, the silence seems enormous.