Bathed in drizzle at dawn, I walk down to the river without
coffee or shower, the haze of slumber not yet fully lifted.
Light slowly leaks into a dingy sky, creeps silently without
wind as fugitive wisps of ragged clouds drag mist across
hills of dew-lit grass. All is a muted charcoal smudge,
a sketchbook scribble. Deep within the fog, on a leaden
millpond framed by a fretwork of gray tree-branch
shadows, geese softly echo each other, hoarsely igniting
a pallid morning.
