Sunrise (September)

After six on this Monday morning in September, blue pushes apart the darkness. It’s no exaggeration. A team tear down advertisements on South Yarra platforms, the crumple of illusions. Carriage lights race through apartment precincts, occupants asleep at their screens. Orange and pink vie for supremacy across east’s horizon, widening into softness. Trees resume their daytime shapes. Storage warehouses take the light, forgotten like their contents, while work sites of block concrete and angular machinery wait for kickstart. Over Caulfield Racecourse a hot air balloon chuckles light-heartedly at early commuters. Last night’s wine was especially good, a smooth Barossa red.

Sunrise (March)

That unearthly dark blue, fade-out stars, its dependent crescent moon. That black, a side street cold despite another warm promise. That dark brown, phased in by unseen fires below Dandenongs. That clotting of grey cloud pink cloud, then zigzag flocks. That grey turning pale blue, placid as its Yarra reflections. That primrose tinge, extending to a line merging light particles. That blue, affirming anew the calendar: Morning, Thursday, March, Lent. That gold, all might all majesty, shadowing our familiar flesh. That red, tiny flames at the very edge of imagination. That green forgotten all night, pattern patterns of ancient resolution.

Sunrise (May)

'Sunrise', 1883

Visiting Van Gogh. Because before sunrise men are going to work rugged up against the cold. Because the effort is made again despite everything they know and dream. Because walls, like a new work, take clean shape with first light. Because sky is becoming the grey immensity of dissolving stars. Because work calls them out of their own darkness. Because white as paper, pale orange, May horizon lifts the Earth’s awareness. “Because one must make efforts like those of the lost souls. Because there is something diabolical about executing a water-colour. Because there is something good in every energetic motion.”

Source of quote: http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/11/170.htm?qp=food

Sunrise