On The Sunrise

It does not always rise over calm seas. Between mountain peaks. On breezy plains. It ascends to its heights over the austere creations of man. Over the Ayn Rand landscape of modern America. Red and orange hues do little to warm the cool gray and fading blacks of our highway system. And it is this juxtaposition that is most striking on the ascent. When the air and light is still cool. But mindlessly we drive to our places of work mainly unaware. In fact for many, the rising of the sun is an inconvenience; the stinging and squinting of eyes and drawn visors of cars are the fruits of men and women trying to hold the sun back.

The filled lanes of blue and red and black pick-up trucks and compact cars and SUVs continue on their ways to fill up empty parking lots of black concrete. Rarely a moment is given to this phenomenon that occurs every day. Painfully we notice it and try to look past it. To spreadsheets and bills; to conference calls and contracts; to breaking news and time crunches. We do not want to be reminded that we will be unable to enjoy the clear blue sky the rising sun will soon settle into. So we choose to ignore it by looking past it. By looking to what it means and not at what it represents.

It's rising signifies a new day. Not another day. A new day. Filled with rises and falls of its own for sure, but a new day nonetheless. Our days are as complicated as these highway roads filled with cars. Of twists and turns and stops and starts. As unpredictable as traffic. Yet rising above all the uncertainty is a certain predictability.

In the cool of the morning, over the empty parking lot, over the gray overpass, over the skyscraper, over this day before me, there is this rising of a sun.