Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Watching the Sun Rise in the West

I sit here, looking out my west window, watching the sunrise. Did you catch anything wrong with that? The sun rises in the east, you say? Out my front windows to the west, a hill rises with stores then houses, then a yellow stone church. Out my back windows, the creek runs in the bottom of the valley, with a few businesses and then a cliff. When the sun rises over the cliff, I can sleep in the sun back there, or I can rise and work in the front, where I can watch the layers of buildings be successively lit by the sun, from the stone church at the crest of the hill, to the houses, to the stores, finally watching the shadow of my building and my neighbor's building creep down the wall of the store across the street. The drama of the bright ball of the sun rising in the east is a glorious thing, but there is pleasure too in wathcing the play of shadow and light on the far side of the sunrise. A more subtle pleasure, but one that can be more interesting, especially over time as the position of the shadows change through the year, revealing the complexities of our planet's tilt and orbit. Secrets of our world are revealed by watching to the west during the rise of the sun.

No comments: