Watching the Morning Come

To watch the morning come is an experience beyond words.  The dark of the night evolves ever slowly into the light of a new day.  That which was unseen in darkness now emerges vaguely in the first brushstrokes of dawn.  At first, you can only see the shapes of things emerging from the darkness and then those shapes become what they are—a bush, a tree, or the potted geraniums at the edge of the deck where I sit, watching the morning come.  The ever-strengthening light brings color, too.  What was black only a moment ago becomes grey and the grey soon fades as the grass becomes green, and the roses are red again, and the blue of the still-blooming hosta are seen as light does its thing.

At first light, the birds begin to sing.  In the distance I hear a rooster crow and in a nearby tree two squirrels chirp and argue, leaping from branch to branch with unbelievable agility.  “When morning gilds the skies, my heart awakening cries” how good it is to watch the morning come.  Then, an overwhelming sense of sadness overtakes my spirit as I realize how many mornings I have missed along my journey’s way.  This remorse passes quickly however, and the gladness returns, as I celebrate the fact that at least I’ve watched THIS morning come.

Suddenly the sun breaks forth with a burst of light creating dappled shadows of tree branches across the lawn as though through a stained glass window.  I know the science of how a morning comes.  But still there is mystery, a sense of wonder, and an inner emotion that seems to overwhelm all explanations of this physical world.  There is a sense of another world (beyond, perhaps, but just as real) as I watch this morning come.  

Words and phrases of familiar hymns break through my awakening spirit as I watch this morning come.  I want to sing those words out loud, but fear I might wake my neighbors (and my singing would certainly do that), so I resist the overwhelming urge and instead write them here.

“…and to my listening ears all nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres…

I rest me in the thought of rocks and trees, of skies and seas; his hand the wonders wrought…

…the birds their carols raise, the morning light, the lily white, declare their maker’s praise…

in the rustling grass I hear him pass; he speaks to me everywhere…This is my Father’s world!”

Watching the Morning Come in Amsterdam--2013