The upper part of the frame is still night. Stars are scattered across the deep navy, and below them a layer of cloud washed with purple and pink passes at a slant. Near the horizon a thin band of orange settles, and the trees and hills remain only as black silhouettes. At what appears to be the water's edge, a few small lights are on.
A sky like this comes every day but is not seen every day. The brighter a city's lighting, the faster the stars overhead are erased. That the stars are this visible in the photograph means there is that much less artificial light, and that darkness is not empty time. It is time used by sleeping birds and insects, and by the bodies of sleeping people.
Transitions resemble this sky. Yesterday's things do not go out all at once and tomorrow's do not come on all at once. While the stars remain, morning begins at the horizon, and there is always a stretch in which the two lights are held in one frame. Where we stand now is largely that stretch.
The time when both lights are visible is short. What we reduce and what we switch on in that interval determines the color of the next sky. Turning off one unnecessary light, asking and answering where the electricity we turn on will be made, are for that reason not small things.
Going down to the water's edge at the bottom of the frame, the dirt path is wet and glistening black. Dew that fell through the night has settled thinly on the surface, drawing the few lights burning far off down onto the roadbed. Looking only at the sky, darkness and light are divided above and below, but the damp earth underfoot reflects both lights at once. The boundary is not drawn only above.
Looking at the photograph again, the brightest place is still the lower sky. The stars above remain ours as they are.
