i can certainly see for miles, but it feels more like days. A dog in the valley gets started this morning, which i guess is a Monday. There too is a cow sounding less than pleased, but how else do cows sound? In the pre-dawn light i dragged my cozy, dehydrated, melancholy self from the coccoon of Casa Sorcha (my Prius home) into the atrocious Walmart lights to brush my teeth in a bathroom stall, for COVID safety.

Sunrise over a river is pleasing in the way that makes you feel warm even when its warmth doesn’t reach you. Maybe that’s why the birds are even slower to wake than the cow. Warmth is scarce these days, worth waiting for.

i arrived on this height of rocky outcrop to a few forest band members calibrating their instruments. A coo, a caw, a cheep. Wind comes off tempo as the river runs massive and silent under the gaze of both sun and moon. All have all been here forever, just like this. How slow it all seems, broad and deliberate; in a rhythm kept by celestial objects, the river saunters on. As i take it all in, the full orchestra arrives. Off beat, maybe even off key, i can hear the slow crescendo of trills, toowhees, honks, the cow again. A woodpecker starts its day. Someone new is barking now.

For a while i was the only human, but a pair of people come along, one chatting about the kids playing on these very rocks in summer. The deeper of these voices sounds reflective as it says, “You know if we’d have chosen that other place we were thinkin about we prolly never would’ve made it here. Remember when I tried that Knoxville thing? That really freaked me out. That was probably the most freaked out I’ve ever been.” i can’t hear the exact reply but they sound happy with their lot, together, and they are deeply respectful of my space alone on the cliff.

A train now. Everyone’s day has begun. The waning gibbous moon fades into the blue as the sun’s warmth reaches me, tender.

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