I have never woken early to see the sunrise,
but sometimes…
I have waited for it.

On short, summer nights,
I have lain awake,
Watching the sky turn;
Imperceptible and wondrous.

It is a creeping thing, at first.
How the darkness shines, so briefly, around the stars,
as it tips over the line between night and day.
(A light gray.)

And as these pinprick stars 
bleed into the glowing, ghostly gloom, 
the silver swirls around itself;
like scattered sugar to a simmering pot.
Like dandelion seeds, aimlessly absorbed in the fog.

Ever present, yet fading out of sight, 
and gone just in time 
for the sun to bloom, like deep-orange roses;
spread like melting butter,
roll, as slow as golden honey,
and warm apricot jam,
falling upwards from the knife of the horizon

across the endless land of day.