Morning in Another Light

Sunlight pours through the front window from a crucible of molten copper, as dark and richly thick as tupelo honey spilling across the white linen tablecloth then oozing to the floor, staining the carpet just an instant before it's gone.

As the morning cools to the palest orange sherbet, a faint breeze dusts the walk with a lavender snow from the myrtles finally come into bloom. Above, an aura bees on golden wings flash and dance around each cluster as they delicately sample the bouquet like connoisseurs at a wine tasting.

Sunrise warms to lemon-lime. Jays and cardinals conduct a war of blue and scarlet at the feeder, each side's young fluttering their encouragement as they await the feast that surely follows their parents' victory. Beyond, a lone, red hibiscus stands sentinel against the wall of green, watching from the shadows.

© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III

Firelight

Firelight - a reading (on YouTube)

We keep the blinds mostly drawn in the dining room at night, just high enough for the cats to sit in the front window and look out. We lower them at dusk just enough to block the streetlight on the corner and the other lights our neighbor's burn throughout the night.

When I awoke this morning, the sun was still low and near the horizon. There was a haze to the east which was lit up in the softest shade of pink, like a rose petal fog that partially obscured the dawn. The sun slanting through the gap in the front window was flame orange, like you only see at dawn or dusk. It struck the legs of our furniture and lit them up as though drawing the fire hidden within the wood. The oak of the barstools glowed like amber beneath a polished finish, the cherry wood in the living room more like garnets. All from a narrow beam of light, maybe a foot high, walking its way from the back of the living room toward the base of the front window as each minute passed.

Ten minutes later, all of it was gone, the haze, the light, the fire. One day soon, it will no longer reappear. Some mornings it pays to rise with the first light of dawn.

© 2011 Edward P. Morgan III