Morning Light

Dawn has been absolutely sparkling every day this summer. Afternoons the clouds roll in, but when I get up in the morning the sky is clear, the air crisp and the light shimmers.

Because my little garden is surrounded on all sides by walls and fences, the morning light has to find a way in, and it slants through the opening where the gate is to the east. Just a narrow bit of sunshine makes its way across the strip of back yard.

I watch as it lights up what it finds. It's uncanny how such a slender bit of sunshine finds individual blooms, like this pink rose in a pot. 

It's just a slant of sun lighting the patio, spotlighting what it wants me to see.

Or this bowl of cuphea -- firecracker plant -- sitting in a small bed of creeping thyme. The sun somehow finds it.

Watching the bit of  rising sunlight move about the garden is fascinating, but I can't describe how the air at 60 degrees is so sharply fresh or how achingly blue the sky above is.

Heavy bees make stems bob as they move from flower to flower, hummingbirds are starting to whizz about, but otherwise it is perfectly still and completely quiet. 

Later there will be morning activity noises as cars and people and dogs get busy, but for those early sunlit moments when dawn comes slanting in on a narrow beam, it is sublime.