I was awake much much too early to rise in those risky hours of sleeplessness when anxious, troublesome thoughts emerge. But, there is another possibility, that these minutes of hours churn acute insight, unstoppable inspiration, riddle solving. Two mysterious, beautiful poems of my peers, shared in last evening's writing workshop, break open with satisfying clarity into my consciousness. An unsolved disagreement with my daughter from earlier in the day takes a new shape as my blurred eyesight clears. The alarm I set goes off. I rise to the day and to a draft of a prose piece I wrote last night, and the exact right title appears to tell me I'm solving my own writing riddles.

All this, before sunrise, when I walk into frost and mist to morning turning to gold.

All photos and text copyright Kelly DuMar, 2016