Just down the road from our farm and through the forest is a retired landfill, what we affectionately call, “The Dump.” The front of the enormous property is a buried trash mountain with white pipes protruding from the ground. The back of the property, closest to our farm, is the giant grassy hill (where these photos were taken), the back fill from digging a grave for the garbage. This hill is our favorite place to watch the sunrise, a solar eclipse, and shooting stars. It is also the best sledding hill in the county – a multi-tiered slope, with berms like belts sectioning the incline into zippy downhill runs.

I like to think that the dump – that vibrant ecosystem of grasses, birds, rocks, deer, insects, sky and earth – appreciates our visits. That after decades of watching us fill the earth with our rank trash, this afterlife, which bears witness to the thrill of gravity and snow, which offers those who are willing to look, a beautiful and expansive view, this afterlife offers some kind of humble atonement for the desecration that gave this landscape its unnatural form. I see the earth, here, doing what many of us do with hurts that have altered our internal and external landscapes. She keeps soaking up the sun, taking in the rain, steadily offering nourishment, life and beauty despite it all.

The sunrise begins as an almost imperceptible change in color. The darkness takes on a hue. A nameless color spreads at the ridge line. It remains dark but you begin to discern a deep purple distinct from the black. Burgundy follows. Then you see it — that aching shadowy pink pushing up toward the clouds. Suddenly the underside of the sky is awash in it, and you pull on your coat with urgency, now, eager to be rid of the window pane and the screen of trees. You walk still in darkness, frosty grass crunching under your feet. 

And as you pass your neighbor’s driveway, you see a silhouette facing the morning glow. As you near, you see it’s your middle-school neighbor. They wait for the bus that passed already. 7:05, you say because you saw your daughter step into the cold and walk to the end of the drive, and disappear into that yellow rectangle coasting down Lydy hill.  You chat for a moment, and as you walk down toward the path in the woods, they call to you: “I don’t know why anyone would choose to be awake right now!”

Your answer is a slow walk through the woods, then the exertion up toward a clearing where all around will be the firey sky. The crescent moon, lofty and wise, watches you like a hawk tracking mice. Your small form charting a line out and up the grassy hill until it stops, a shadow now, standing reverent before a quiet land ablaze in beauty. If there is anything that reminds you of the humility of miracles, it is the sun’s daily return.