An hour before dawn, a deer-shaped shadow drifts out of the woods, apparitional against the snow, like the photographic negative of a ghost.
sunrise
After an orange sunrise, the morning turns overcast and still. Two pileated woodpeckers fly over, one after the other—slow silent missiles.
BAM. BAM. BAM. The red crest of a pileated woodpecker flashes into view from the dead side of a maple, sunrise orange on the hill behind.
Sunrise comes with a soundtrack of grinding and beeping from the quarry to our east. Right below the railing, goldenrod bobs: a winter wren.
At sunrise, a pair of screech owls trill back and forth, one high, one low, as orange-and-purple clouds race overhead.
Clear at sunrise, bright orange spreading across the field. One of the daffodil buds in my yard looks ready to open: a broad yellow seam.
Sunrise. I’m in a staring contest with a groundhog who just emerged from under the house. I blink, and he disappears. A piercing whistle.
A red sunrise. Loud rending sounds as a gray squirrel peels bark from the dead elm tree in the yard, hanging upside-down like a nuthatch.
Cloud-bellies at sunrise: white, yellow, blue-gray, mauve. We’re back to cold weather, and only the house finch sounds happy to be alive.
Gray sky at sunrise. The porcupine is late; I watch it coming from a long way off. It pauses to chew on the porch—no taste like home!
A clear sunrise, and every twig and blade of grass still wearing its coat of ice. Two titmice drone back and forth amid the glitter.
To see the sunrise, I have to walk to the edge of the porch and look west: red ridge, the gibbous moon high overhead, a pair of ravens.