Nick Blocha
This morning I awake much too early. The sky is dark as sunrise has yet to show its face on what will be another pale, winter day. I have hours to myself before I need to begin to even think about work. In the darkness, I occupy my mind until the black, twisted trees seem darker now even than before, as the sky swiftly ignites into deep indigo. I slip on my boots, not tightening the Boa laces, and step out onto the wooden porch. The sun has come, and my eyes are captured, observant of all which may reveal itself to my soul this morning. The colors rise into the sky as they subtly morph into salmon, swimming along the clouds laid within the stream of morning blue. A bright golden yellow is spied between the black oaks and cottonwoods, reflecting off of Little Millers Bay, now a semi-frozen pale.
Despite the cars and trucks roaring by along 86 this early in the morning, my soul is still and silent. The fresh morning air fills my lungs, clean and clear. No air is like that in the morning, the very same which induces a shiver, my being in only a green, long-sleeve waffle T. This week, now the last day of December before the official new year rolls in, the temperature has risen to above freezing. The birds sing their morning songs, “hurrah hurray,” in a bright and chipper tone only they can embody. The molten sunshine engulfs the pink-painted clouds. What name fits this color, but for sunrise? It is a color which turns brown eyes to sparkling chests of abundant light, a glimmer of the warmth brought to the depths of my soul.
For some of us, there is no better time in all the days lived and unlived. For that brief moment as the colored sky meets the Earth, all the spirits within, around, and between come together, alive at the top of the morning. In that swift melding of fire into ice, that fleeting moment before the grey haze of the winter day, before the freezing temperatures return, all is well and at peace. It is when this world and the next pass by each other and begin to wake up. That fire lingers on the horizon as a soft light fills all crooks and crevices of the tall prairie grasses and buildings alike.
The day has come, the sunrise has passed.
About The Author
Nick Blocha is serving as a Land and Water Steward via Green Iowa AmeriCorps at the Iowa Lakeside Labs (ILL) in Milford, Iowa. Sister lab to the state hygienists in Iowa City, ILL analyzes water samples from around the state, hosts researchers and students, artists and writers, and aids in a number of environmental and community efforts with a multitude of partnering organizations and government agencies.
With a background in the arts and storytelling, and as a long-time environmental enthusiast, Nick grew up as a barefoot hippie in the woods of North Carolina and Atlanta, and values the service they can provide and assist with via the GIA program. Nick seeks to focus on the spaces where human society and nature intersect and coexist in harmony.