It comes on like a whisper, soft and sweet and almost silent. It peeks out from theshadow of the hills, spilling light onto my little world. At the break of every dawn I rise and look out thewindow. Beyond the darkness, the mountains are doused in the brilliant light of rubies, emeralds andsapphires. All at once they leap and bound to every corner of the earth. Soon the sky is filled with pinks andpurples and blues.

At the top of the heavens, nameless colors twist and mix. They linger for amoment and then descend, falling to the ground, turning into soft fingers of light and color, infusing life intoeverything. One by one the trees shimmer as thousands of rustling leaves quiver with a morning chill,raining dew onto the grass below. The lake turns from a cold, dark mirror to a perfect duplicate of the new,kaleidoscopic world around it. The fence is an outsider, cutting a man-made path through the naturalwonderland I behold.

The first colors of dawn are my colors. Primitive, fluorescent lightsilluminate the world at this hour, and few have seen the world through sleepy, dream-filled eyes.Everything is faint and glowing, and looks different from the full-blown sunlight of day. It's mystical,surreal, sublime.

It comes on like a whisper, soft and sweet and almost silent.