Morning has broken

Looking out the north facing window of my home office, I see a lavender sky. The leaves of the trees finally look green, just a couple of crucial shades away from black. Turning my head, I see a pale blue sky out the southern window of my kitchen, set off by paler, spring green leaves. There's a mockingbird singing and a whippoorwill. I even heard a sleepy hoot from an owl.

How did I forget the beauty of early morning and how much it moves me? I let this turn into an anxious time, the ragged end of the panicked insomnia hours, the time when my level of fatigue from not sleeping would determine how I would approach the day.

The trees in the front are now multiple shades of green. I can even see variations in the hues of their trunks. Closer to the ground, the sky is the palest pink, as if one drop of red dye had seeped into and spread through a gallon of cream. Higher up, it's blue as the sun has staked its claim to paint the world in the colors of its choosing.

I can tell it will be another humid day. The air already feels thick. It has a gentleness now it will lack later. Soon enough, it will feel as if the sky is fatigued from holding all that water suspended and must lie its burden down on you.

My neighbor is walking past my house now, glaring at my yard's weeds that threaten her perfectly manicured jewel of a lawn. Walking stick in hand never touching the ground, her elegantly coiffed silver hair in contrast to the baggy men's shirt untucked over sagging khaki shorts, she moves with a determination and pace too fast for me now. It's official, the day has started, but I still want to linger in the musings of dawn.

dawn