First Light

Iridescent light filters through the forests in Winter. Rounding soft corners, rough textures, and pockets of deep shadows. Winter light subtly stretches dawn into dusk. My footsteps are silenced by the soft needle filled floor. Sounds are absent, absorbed, muffled, in the damp forest air. My breath hangs in the air for a moment. I am deep in thought in the half light of winter’s dawn.

The thick air is suddenly pierced, I am startled, by the bright chips of Pygmy Nuthatch as they follow the edge of breaking dawn expanding through the forest. My eyes search the deep shadows in the forest folds one last time before being overtaken by slivers and shards of sharp bright metallic light at the forest edge. The angling corridor of light reflecting off black water. The edge intensifies in brightness and sound, making a world of white and all else black. Ducks call and a Kingfisher rattles off his disapproval with my presence. Upstream a wall of sky cracks a divide through the thickening winter forest.

And I am drawn to walk along the edge of that divide.

#winterlight #forestlight #dawnlight #riveredge #dampforest #dechutesriver #oregon

The Deschutes River