Why Do Men Arise So Early?

7 thoughts on “Why Do Men Arise So Early?”

1. The dawn has many delights. Birds sing at dawn for the joy of the new day. This means that every morning, a wave of birdsong sweeps across the United States from New England to California. This band of music moves at about three thousand miles an hour. Most people don’t think about stuff like this. But now you know.
   And here is an almost real-time map of bird movements gleaned from the weather radars of NOAA:
   https://birdcast.info/migration-tools/live-migration-maps/
   This map will have transversing dusk and dawn lines too, so you can see where all the music is.
   Enjoy.

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2. Oops, the dawn line with the singing birds moves only about one thousand miles an hour. It goes about 3,000 miles in 3 hours.

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3. The delights of dawn a good day will spawn.
   The early morning bliss. Nothing like it. Warm lamplight. Hot coffee. Sweet solitude. Books and incense. The drunk hustlers all asleep. You own the world.

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4. >>It’s an arms race of sorts, to see who can wake up as close to yesterday as possible. <<

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5. Shorter days extend the pre-dawn bliss.

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6. Morning
   Billy Collins
   Why do we bother with the rest of the day,
   the swale of the afternoon,
   the sudden dip into evening,
   then night with his notorious perfumes,
   his many-pointed stars?
   This is the best—
   throwing off the light covers,
   feet on the cold floor,
   and buzzing around the house on espresso—
   maybe a splash of water on the face,
   a palmful of vitamins—
   but mostly buzzing around the house on espresso,
   dictionary and atlas open on the rug,
   the typewriter waiting for the key of the head,
   a cello on the radio,
   and, if necessary, the windows—
   trees fifty, a hundred years old
   out there,
   heavy clouds on the way
   and the lawn steaming like a horse
   in the early morning.

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7. Thanks for introducing me to Billy Collins, Vito. Had never heard of him until today.

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