In Morning

Every morning I leave the house when the sun is just making its way up the Eastern sky, and sometimes even before that. The air is a brittle one that early, heady companion to the cool dew that has settled on the grass in the front and side yard. I jangle my key chain as I head out to the barn to get into my car, a warning to any creatures that happen to be lurking in the barn rafters or in the nest at the rear of the barn to leave me alone. Usually a solitary bird will make its escape from that barn, heading right past me and straight on into the rising sun.

As I make my way up Honey Hill, I catch a glimpse of the several relatively new houses along the route, in shades of cobalt blue, sparkling white, and cherry red, like an homage to the great country in which I live, but more like an accident that just happened to yield positive results. I would love to take a picture of each house, cobble them together into a makeshift flag, and hang it in my back car window so they could see it as I pass. The deer often line the road at various points, queen’s soldiers bowing as I drive by, or, skittish, scrambling back into the underbrush at the approach of my monstrous vehicle.

Once I’ve crested the hill, I know I will see a vision of pure beauty, the surreal low-lying fog that lies in a band’s width across the road and on into the distance. It doesn’t affect my line of sight straight ahead because it is not dense, but it is indeed otherworldly, like ghosts are calling out to me from within its murky interior. I catch glimpses of a hand here, a leg there, a face smiling back at me from the fog. I look to my right and I see it extending into the distance, across the fields shorn of cornstalks that used to be there, replanted, waiting for the next crop of corn to be born. To my left I see a shallow lake that is man-made, but seems to be masquerading as a natural water feature. I don’t care because I like it anyway, especially as I see it in the morning, on my erstwhile route to get to a job that is the opposite of nature. I see the lake, and I have to let out a sigh. Coming from off its surface is a rising cloud of steam, streaking the imaginary glass in front of the lake and stretching right up into heaven, thinning out as it climbs the pale gray sky.

And I keep driving to the next stop sign, where I turn left.

Sam