6:00 a.m. -- Know Where You Are?

I'm standing in my four-season, glassed-in porch -- staring out into my stark-black woods. Coffee-cup in hand, I twist slowly side-to-side, feeling my pajama shorts and t-shirt tighten as I hold at the ends of each deep-twisting stretch. One-step-back, I let my shoulders drop forward, bend at the waist. My bald-spot nearly grazes the window. I place my coffee cup softly on the tile, hug the backs of my knees and tug in close. I hold tight for three luxurious long breath-cycles.

Retrieving my coffee-cup I rise again to my full height, and gaze out into the blackness. I can feel it coming. Can't see it yet, though.

I know the terrain, can feel it there waiting for the sunrise. But it's all-murky dark-blotches against a rich-black back-drop. I know where things are out there, where they'll emerge with the slowly rising sun.

Yoga soon. But first:

the dark inky-black-Black slowly begins to change. In the soft darkess, I sense a sweet pulsation: something like the teasing theme in the opening measures of the first movement of Brahms E-minor 4th.

A pink glow emerges by scant degrees from the deep southwest. It rises. Tints the rising tree trunks, throws murky shadows dimly on the east side of the dark-brown barn. Reflects lightly on the silver-stove-pipes hanging beneath the bird-feeder. The light moves eerily, a slow dance in the tight arms of the dimly emerging woodland.

Further south than I expect, a sliver of bright red-gold sun peeks over the horizon. Now the tree-trunks glow reddish, the stove-pipes twinkle softly, and the feeder above emerges. The seed-mounds are clearly lower behind the plastic shield than I noted them late-afternoon yesterday, when the finches danced.

The two rustic path-arbors and the double swing west of the barn by the pond-side slowly emerge . The green, double swing turns reddish. It's soon faintly identifiable in the rising light.

The scene soon brightens -- somewhere between red-gold and sepia. I can't decide. Now the ground beneath the feeder is moving strangely. As the light-level slowly rises I make out a virtual carpet of mourning doves and finches pecking busily about. What? They minimize flight without landing lights? Never seen that before. How've I missed that after all these years spent loving this woods?

A blue-jay plops down onto the feeder roof, hops lightly down onto the trough and begins picking about. I clearly see his bobbing, sharp-cocked head. Color seems wrong, though: whadaya get when you add reddish-gold to blue? Not sure.

This's what I get for spending my entire elementary education with only the 12-color-Crayola array. Poverty's bill is never fully paid.

As I reflect momentarily on my poor-kid upbringing, the sun goes blithely about its own business. Now the scene is gold-red. More than half the rising sun's clearly discernible above the southeast horizon. Its glow is soft. I can still look directly into it without squinting.

Sudden movement draws my eye beyond the southeast corner of the barn. The six-point buck, his two does, and now-full-brown, tallish-skinny fauns step quietly forward among the scattering finches, and nose about in the seed-fall beneath the feeder.

Finches rise from the ground, dart carefully about the feeder-roof. The fat doves scatter. Three land on my side of the feeder trough.

Now we're open for business. Faint movement back deep along the pond path heralds the approach of our covey of wild turkeys. They stomp in high-stiff-legged like the Prussian army, their tail-feathers cocked full. Soon they've scattered the remaining bird-carpet beneath the feeder.

As gold-white glitters slowly to white-gold, the air seems filled with hungry birds. A bevy of brown ground squirrels race headlong down whitish tree-trunks and join the feast.

Then suddenly it's bright white. I look down at my full coffee cup. Raise it to my lips, issue a deep, contented sigh.

Italian Roast. A deep breath.

I rock my shoulders gently, raise my elbows, stretch and yawn. I lift the Italian roast, breathe deeply and sigh. My first small sip surprises me. 'S-cold.

Gatsby issues one soft mewing peep, then jumps down from the couch and follows me to the kitchen.

It's a wonderful morning. I send up a silent prayer in gratitude for gorgeous Sunday sunrises -- adding-in the inventors of the micro-wave.

Hope you're having a nice lazy Sunday morning, too.