Just before dawn

It's cool and my fingers are numbing as I am fumbling with the camera. The mist and dust and fog are obliterated after so much rain. There is a distinct clarity in the night sky. Eventually exhilaration shoots through me warming my hands and my imagination.

I turn my face up to the skies and behold the half disc glowing, submerged in a misty ring.

Ever so slowly the firmament begins to shift and glide southward. I photograph, trying to take a portrait of the heavens.

The Nightingale repetitively squawks his tune, waiting for dawn to creep over the western hills. Then he goes to bed.

But I open my eyes wide to absorb the diffusion of the stars. I turn my face up and squint, and struggle to see the surface of the moon. I copy it. Capture it. Struggle to reproduce it.