A Thousand Sunrises

One morning beside a pond in Vermont

One among many / © Bryan Pfeiffer

THE SUN rose a thousand times the other day over Ricker Pond.

From my vantage on shore, Sunrise Number One was a faint glow through dense fog. Then the glow became a shifting ghost, which was Sunrise Number Two. Soon enough, a dozen White Pines emerged into silhouette across the pond for Sunrise Number Three. And then the fog regrouped so that the ghost, the pines, and the pond all but vanished. By then I had lost count of the sunrises so far that morning.

It went on like this for at least an hour (frankly, I lost track of the time as well). The sun and fog and pond performed a ballet for my affections. Little did they know that each had me at every plié and pirouette. But the sun was not to be denied its day. Burning yellow, its crown first peeked out from behind distant puffy clouds. Soon the pond returned. Two kayakers adrift through swirls of mist embodied Sunrise Number Whatever.

By its astronomical definition, sunrise is merely a moment—the split-second twinkling when the top edge of the sun first appears to us at the Earth’s horizon. In that sense, sunrise is a passing tangent, a number depending on where you stand: the sun rose at 6:32 a.m. today in Montpelier, Vermont (USA).

But when we devote ourselves to it, sunrise is of course an unfolding: fading stars, emerging fog, splashes of red, orange, and yellow across a faint-blue canvas. It typically ends for us once the sun clears the horizon and we dare not look straight at it anymore. Or does it?

Consider mine at Ricker Pond (which is in Groton State Forest here in Vermont). Once the sun had vanquished the fog and taken its proper place in the sky, I wandered back to my campsite with notions of oatmeal, a fresh peach, and maple syrup. But the dawn wasn’t done with me yet—the music had begun.

He really had no business singing from a Red Maple above my tent. No, I don’t mean the Blue Jay squawking (perhaps at the Barred Owl I had heard calling overnight). And not the Red-eyed Vireo, who sings like the rest of us breathe, even as most songbirds have now gone silent for the season. Instead, like a robin with a sore throat, he sang despite the approach of autumn: a Scarlet Tanager. A young male or an adult who’d molted his crimson feathers, the tanager flashed yellow-green like the changing leaves. Sunrise Number One Thousand and One. From there the dawn only continued.

Although I had planned to walk from my campsite for birds that morning, the warblers flew to me instead. A Northern Parula displayed full-frontal yellow and orange. A Nashville Warbler was sweet lemon with a gray head. An American Redstart flashed amber with each flick of her tail. A confetti of warblers at my campsite—10 species in total. Each another sunrise.

Later that morning, big dragonflies, mosaic darners in the genus Aeshna, displayed pastels of blue, green, and yellow. Among three more warbler species was an Ovenbird flashing a blaze-orange racing-stripe crown. A Monarch floated toward Mexico. And an orchid named Sphinx Ladies’-Tresses (Spiranthes incurva), a late-bloomer in goldenrod season, flaunted sensuous ivory flowers. On it went through the day, each encounter an unfolding, each a sunrise.

Northern Parula, Canada Darner, Sphinx Ladies’-Tresses, Monarch / © Bryan Pfeiffer (Parula is from Linda Maley)

As it turns out, there’s some irony to the sunrise: The most reliable thing in the world is an illusion. The sun does not rise. Instead, as passengers on a tilted, spinning planet, we earthlings rotate toward the east. Wherever we stand—atop our very own edge of Earth—at sunrise we dip into the sun’s gaze. We genuflect from darkness into light.

Earth spins well enough on its own—a thousand miles an hour at the equator. It makes for slow and lovely sunrises (lots of them). So we need not spin any faster. And yet the machinery of “progress” seems to have us whirling too often out of control. Harried and detached, online and distracted, we find ourselves in a culture spinning way too fast.

And so I find my ways to stop, or at least to slow myself to Earth’s loyal rotation. At that pace, on any given day:

A songbird becomes my hero
a dragonfly my faith.
An orchid brings me hope
a butterfly the light.
And from pond and fog
dancing, shifting
yet again
a sunrise.

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Celebrate Sun Day on September 21

Millions of us around the world can genuflect toward the dawn once again on Sun Day — a day of action for powering more our lives with light. Find your place in the sun »

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Save the Date: October 7 at 6PM in Plainfield, Vermont

Meet me for a presentation about my 21-year search for one of the rarest butterflies on the continent, Bog Elfin. Titled “A Butterfly is a Place,” I’ll reveal how a tiny insect embodies big ideas about the natural world and human nature. Held at the Plainfield Town Hall and Opera House, my talk will wrap up Cutler Memorial Library’s lecture series called “LIVING SYSTEMS: Conversations on Ecology and the Natural World.”

From a higher vantage in Groton State Forest, Kettle Pond in the foreground and Vermont’s Green Mountains at the horizon / © Bryan Pfeiffer