The morning

Once upon a time I would have laughed if someone said, “There will come a day when you’ll savor the early morning.”

Yet here it is.

I sit on the porch and sip my coffee, the steam swirling in the air, colliding with my visible breath.

A cool spring morning.

Quiet.

Except, of course, for the bird song serenade; a welcome chorus to start the day made up of chickadees, robins, blue jays, and sparrows.

The sky is a blemish free blue.

Sun beams pass through baby blooms on trees that line the street, turning the fragile petals into tissue paper sheets of pink and white.

The light lands on fairy dust lingering as a glittering layer of frost upon the ground, and shines on waking flowers, giving them a gemstone glow: violets now amethyst, and citrine daffodils, their leaves and stems all emerald.

I sit and let the calm of the morning wash over me. I understand why the likes of Wordsworth, Whitman, Emerson, Berry, and Thoreau all turned to nature time and again.

A balm for the soul. A meditation wrapped in flora and fauna.

I take a deep breath, and as the sidewalks start to carry runners and dog walkers and others greeting another day, I feel ready to begin my own.