Sunrise in Bitter Cold
It’s no secret in my world that I’m a sunrise junky. There’s nothing wrong with sunsets, and I love a good one as much as anyone, but there’s something to be said for earning the show the way getting up early for a sunrise does. There’s also the mindset of the beginning, rather than the ending to the day that I appreciate. I like beginnings it seems.
This morning the sunrise rose over the hills, split into fragmented rays by the trees in the woods, and finally reached my face as I did some outdoor chores before work. It’s been bitter cold the last few days, but the sun would have none of my complaints. Blame your Mother for turning a cold shoulder on me, the sun seems to say. And I nod, silently thankful for the warmth that does reach me. And I thought of a beautiful turn of words from this Mary Oliver poem that I’d read recently, appropriately named Sunrise, “it is another one of the ways to enter fire”:
“… I thought
how the sun
blazes
for everyone just
so joyfully
as it rises
under the lashes
of my own eyes, and I thought
I am so many!
What is my name?
What is the name
of the deep breath I would take
over and over
for all of us? Call it
whatever you want, it is
happiness, it is another one
of the ways to enter
fire.”
Mary Oliver, Sunrise