Steam rises from my coffee mug, a silver thread dancing before dissolving into light.
This morning, the sun climbs through the pines along the ridge, casting sunlight across the leaf-strewn lawn, through the bare undergrowth, and into my kitchen. The light pools in the wooden-beamed room where I sit, warming my upturned face and these motionless hands.
Here in the valley, the sunrise travels nearly sixty degrees along the horizon as the seasons shift. In summer, it bursts through oak leaves at six o’clock, flooding the bedroom with green-filtered gold. Now, nearly eight o’clock must pass before the sun’s low-angled rays thread between the pine trunks to reach my kitchen table.
Five hours of daylight have vanished since midsummer’s fullness. The valley’s greens have faded to ash and amber. Even the sunlight feels thinner—summer’s honeyed warmth has drained away, leaving only autumn’s pale ghost to welcome winter’s honest light.
This is what remains.
Smell the welcoming scent of warm coffee. See how morning spreads its bright fingers across the forest floor and the ten thousand grass tips of the lawn. Watch the deer on the slope, their breath rising like incense in the sharp air as they bow to the last green clover. Notice how sunlight makes each grain of the oak table glow from within.
Not symbol. Not metaphor. Not story.
This is what is truly given.
This moment—direct, luminous, complete.