Sleep Is A Waste This Morning

          It's 4:32am and the green glow of the digital alarm clock is the room's only light.

          The black silence of early morning blankets my hilltop and begs to be acknowledged for its nothingness.  Sleep seems a waste at a time like this.

          Artificial light seems a waste as well so I feel my way around the kitchen to start the coffee and steal a cup halfway through the brewing.  It's serious coffee but I'll need it as I wrap myself in a heavy jacket and step out onto the front porch with all senses on full alert.

          What we have here is not only an absence of light but an absence of sound as well.  The loudest noise of the morning is my tinnitus, gained 35 years ago on an afternoon in an old coal mine with friend Paul and a 44 magnum.

          A dog, about half a mile away, west, calls for breakfast.  It's a hound, tied.  By its tone of voice, I'd guess fully resigned to life mostly on a chain.

          There's a lone rooster.

          South.

          Andy Millers' I'd guess and now a second dog, also south.  This one has the note of a free dog, a herding dog, likely the Burkholder's Bobby.  It couldn't be their new dog, whose ribs were broken last week by one of the horses.  That dog will not be barking for another week or two. 

          Won't be walking between a horse's legs either.

          There's a horse in the pasture, not 20 yards from my porch table.  Must be Ruby.  She's been ostracized by the others since giving birth four months ago so she grazes alone.  I'd never have guessed she was there until she sneezed.

          If I use peripheral vision, I'm just able to separate her white stockinged feet and the black shape of her body against the graying pasture floor.

          Now it's 6:20 and morning has sucked the heat out of the coffee as the shape of the pasture hill begins to separate itself from the valley fog.  Ruby moved to the east fence line and the other horses are congregated a quarter mile away on the horizon.

          Ruby makes no overtures in their direction although she will later.  Eventually her persistence will pay off and she'll be re-accepted into the clique. 

          Color has returned to the hill and all the horses have drifted out of sight.  A few lumpy black piles are the only hint they've been nearby.

          More dogs, more roosters and a bright orange lozenge of sun, coughed up by the eastern horizon, mean it's time to go pick up the morning paper.