Nothing There #4

Well, except for a quiet sunrise over the Capital

Sometimes
it just 
doesn’t come.

There’s just 
nothing there, 
or not much.

You watch
and listen 
but catch no signal, 
see no sign.

Then there 
it is, right
in front of you.

Or maybe 
it’s far off, like
on the horizon,
like this morning’s
sunrise.

Burning a path
up and above
the trees and a set
of skinny steeples 
far out over
the Capital.

This morning’s view of Washington, DC, from the NW neighborhood.

Blazing orange,
way too bright 
to stare at, 
for too long.

The sunlight 
cuts horizontally 
through the morning,
catching more red and orange
than blue and purple light,
to our delight.

Rooflines and windows 
catch the soft glow,
shadows shifting
and changing with every
second, reflecting the
ephemeral show.

Clouds 
pinned stationary
to the increasingly  
blue sky, 
the orange and yellow 
acquiescing.

Trees again 
show their light green
Spring leaves,
slipping out of the dark
they’ve been in
all night.

The quiet hum
of traffic plying
the awakening
neighborhood, horns and birds
joining in, again.

A string 
of black limousines
cruises by, blue lights
flashing, their drivers not stopping, 
slowly easing through 
stop lights and stop signs,
all other traffic and pedestrians
resigned 
to the cadence 
of the privileged inside.

A crane silhouetted
by the sun, comes
alive, slowly swinging
a load of drywall or roofing tile
or some other heavy building material
up to the top of the skeletal 
new building, 
nothing at this point but 
steal beams and scaffolding.

The steady beep
of a delivery truck
backing up
at the corner restaurant
feels like an exclamation mark,
declaring this bit
of morning bliss
has ended.