Posted: 01/03/22

Sunrise 29 January - Eve Darwood

A bank of cloud threatened above the horizon, like its own land mass.  I found the brightest shine of orange and kept my eyes trained towards it lest I’d miss the sun.  I needn’t have feared.  When she appeared in all her golden glory, she dominated the sky.  The awakening city beneath fell out of my awareness now: this was just me and her.  I watched her move – more quickly than I’d thought she would.  Lifting, lifting, lifting herself up – and lifting me.  ‘You cannot help but see me,’ she whispered.  All around was darkness, shadowed by her light.

But quickly, she began to set – reversing her reveal.  The clouds – a solid, steely mass, loomed overhead, waiting to swallow her in shadow once again.  I’d seen the sun arise and now I watched her lifting to – I thought – a new demise.

Yet I was wrong, again.  Even behind this blanket full of atmospheric shade, she glowed.  She was there all along: I saw her stubborn rays reaching down to the river below.  I waited, and she shone, not ever gone.

And just as I was leaving, a promise, silvery, cooler than her earlier golden glow, above the landscapes of the cloud, its own horizon – mountain peaks, wisps of treetops – there she is again.  Not ever gone.

Beneath, a city moves but even in this solitary hour, I have no time to notice them.