The world ends every night. Most people don't mention this, perhaps because it ends so quietly and returns so reliably that we've stopped noticing the miracle of it. I notice because I’m usually up before the day gets its groove back.
There's a particular quality to the backyard at this hour that resists description but insists on being witnessed. The darkness isn't fully dark, it's that deep blue-grey that belongs exclusively to the half hour when the night has spent itself but the day hasn't yet committed. The oak trees are silhouettes. The fence is a suggestion. The feeders hang motionless, empty of visitors, patient as monks.
I stand at the French doors with my first cup of Jah's mercy, Ms. Wonder still asleep upstairs, and I wait for the world to reconstitute itself. It always does. But it always makes me wonder, just for a moment, if this will be the morning it doesn't.
A lone dove arrives first. She’s drawn the short straw and descends from the hedge before any other creature stirs, landing on the feeder platform with a soft, decisive thump. She doesn't eat immediately. She simply stands there in the pewter light, as though she's been appointed to verify that the backyard is still where they left it. First Dove of Morning. Inspector of Dawns.
Satisfied with her report, she begins to eat, and her presence seems to give the others permission. A cardinal appears in the crape myrtle, not the vivid red of his afternoon self, but a muted, sleepy crimson, as though, like me, he needs a moment before achieving full color. A chickadee arrives, then another. The Carolina wren announces herself from somewhere in the jasmine with a single declaratory note, as if to say I'm here, I'm here, I'm here, which is really all any of us is ever saying.
The light shifts. It happens gradually and then all at once, the way important things do. And then Breezer, the spokesperson for the squirrel family, appears. Breezer of first light is not the Breezer of the afternoon fence-top provocations or the orchestrated campaigns against the crow gang. This Breezer moves deliberately, almost carefully, as though the morning is something to be handled with reverence.
He takes his usual route from the oak to the fence to the feeder, but without his customary theatrical flourish. No tail-flagging. No pausing to survey his domain with that particular squirrel expression that suggests he's already three moves ahead of everyone else. He simply arrives, selects his breakfast with quiet discernment, and settles on the fence post to eat.
I watch him and think about the night he's just come through, tucked into his drey with the darkness outside and the world temporarily dissolved. What does a squirrel carry into sleep? What, if anything, follows him out of it?
He pauses in his eating and looks directly at the French doors, directly at me. We regard each other across the silver morning air. There is, I think, a moment of mutual recognition, two creatures who have once again made it safely to the other side of the night.
Mr. Woodrow, the woodpecker, lands in his breakfast tree with the gravitas of a judge taking the bench. He surveys the assembled company: the dove Sisters of the Immaculate Order of Brunswick now arrived in full congregation, the cardinal achieving proper red of the day, and Breezer finishing his breakfast with quiet efficiency. Woodrow delivers three measured drumbeats against the bark. The day may proceed.
From beyond the fence, a dog offers a single bark—not alarm, just announcement: Still here. Still here.
The light is fully gold now, that brief perfect gold before it whitens into ordinary morning. The dove sisters glow in it. The cardinal blazes. Even the fence posts look distinguished.
And then I see a signal that the opening act is winding down and the main event is about to begin: Breezer's tail is twitching. Slowly at first, just the tip, a subtle oscillation that could almost be the morning breeze. But I know better. I've seen this before. That tail twitch is the squirrel equivalent of cracking one's knuckles, of rolling up one's sleeves, of the faint smile that precedes the opening gambit.
The night is over. The reverence for its passing has been observed. The world has been successfully reconstituted, and the morning duly noted. Now, apparently, it's time to cause some trouble.
Breezer spots something in the neighbor's yard, something I can't see from where I stand, but his whole body shifts with sudden attention and mischievous intent. The contemplative creature of five minutes ago is gone as completely as the blue-grey darkness. In his place is the Breezer I know best: alert, calculating, and radiating the particular energy of someone who has just had a very good idea.
He glances back at me once, then launches himself along the fence with his usual breathtaking speed and disappears into the oak branches with a rustle and a flash of tail.
The dove sisters watch him go with what I can only interpret as resignation. Mr. Woodrow delivers another measured drumbeat, this one sounding distinctly like here we go again. The cardinal retreats to the crape myrtle. The chickadees resume their cheerful indifference. The day has officially begun.
I finish my coffee at the French doors, watching the backyard settle into its daytime rhythms, the negotiations and skirmishes, the territorial claims and peanut politics, the ongoing saga of creatures going about the urgent business of being alive.
Every morning is a small act of faith, it turns out. Not just for me, standing at the French doors and wondering if the world will remember to come back tomorrow. It requires a measure of faith in all of us.
And every morning, so far, it has remembered to return.
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