Three Sunrises from Amtrak; River

March 20, 1980

My last night's sleep is real, the sky still dark when wheel-sounds blur and seem to sing. I wake to see wide water, moving smoothly with small waves and water-sounds, running beside us. We curve into it. A red edge of light touches the farther side, rises, and thins to orange, grows round, and leaps out from the water's burnished track. How serendipitous that as we cross the Mississippi the sun should choose those minutes to rise!