Soft Beginnings

The sky is blushing with excitement to start the day, but the heavy fog pulls a veil over her excited face and leaves only the clawed outline of branches in silhouette against the rosey sky.  The air is heavy with water and warmer than usual.  I can hear the mist collecting on the few remaining leaves hundreds of feet over my head and then rolling to the leaves' edges and falling with abandoned effort to the forest floor giving in to gravity and creating a soft snapping sound.

Eventually the sun pierces through in places turning the straw, which covers newly seeded patches in the lawn, to gold.  Almost everything else is still hidden in the silk of fog.  It feels safe and comforting as if this misty blanket can protect me from anything harsh.  All the sharp edges of the end of fall have been smoothed to a soft sheen.  All is reverent and quiet.

I am compelled to take the path to the river to follow the early morning call of Canadian geese disturbed by the increasing light. Their chatter always sounds like the panic of old women at the empty bargain table going for the last treasure and is misplaced in this gray cathedral.  Their camouflage is being removed in subtle layers with each degree of the sun's climb over the southern horizon and they are wary.

The geese have heard me or seen my dangerous shadow before I am near for they are just distant fuzzy ghosts barely visible in the middle of the river heading rapidly and with magical grace to the opposite side.  For a short time it is very quiet.  I am alone.  But wait...I hear the tenuous songs of several birds in the trees.  There is the high cry of a jay above me and the song of white-throated sparrows calling from the shelter of the salt bush to my back.  Even the rhythmic tat-a-tat of the red bellied woodpecker tells me that the day is beginning with or without the sun.