Fog prolongs the dawn well past sunrise. How long will squirrels keep scolding after a cat has slunk away? Ten minutes and counting.
sunrise
Still air and a heavy frost. A pair of ravens fly side by side over the porch, one calling like a crow—falsetto—the other like a death rattle.
The ground is white again. Bright spots in the clouds that could be moon or dawn. The deep breathing of the pines.
Heavy gray sky. A screech owl’s descending quaver. And then it’s sunrise, according to my phone and the crows.
A few flakes of snow. Valley sounds eddy on the wind. The sun makes an appearance among the ridgetop trees.
Fifteen minutes after sunrise, the cloud-lid lifts, and a bright seam appears above the horizon. A white-throated sparrow sings two notes and stops.
Sunrise stains the western ridge barn-red as the dawn chorus of crows rises to a cacophony. High in a walnut tree, a squirrel is licking its genitals.
Thin clouds at sunrise with the blue just visible, like faded jeans. A crow has a brief exchange with his echo.
Heavily overcast at sunrise, which I’m taking on faith. The sound of a Carolina wren hopping across the porch roof.
Heavily overcast sunrise; the only faint color comes from the ground. The great-horned owl falls silent as a nuthatch begins to call.
Cold and still. Dove wings accompany a train whistle. A red sunrise creeps down the western ridge.
Still haunted by dreams I can’t remember when the sun clears the ridge and sets the clouds of my breath aglow.
Heavily overcast at sunrise; only the ground glows a faint pink, thick with rain-slick leaves. A screech owl trills.
A close shot echoes off the ridge—it’s the opening day of regular firearms deer season. The sun moves slowly through the trees, dimming, blazing.