Earliest Morning

Cruising the coast highway
from Del Mar to points north,
the rolling Pacific, to his left as it lay.
The westernmost mountains to the right,
the shore and sand giving up the night,
not another soul yet on his road,
marveling at the complex dawn,
colors both soft and bold.
so many layers, varied tones.
Black becoming purple begetting rose,
future yellows and gold but a notion,
some time to go before the sun
took its first glimpse of the ocean.

Sunset gets all the press, he thought.
(probably due to advance sales agents)
Oh, sunset has its own virtues,
if one likes that garish kind of thing,
beach goers gathering in hoards,
oohing and aahing,
pretending to see a green flash,
quickly dispersing to watered down happy hours.

Dawn gets little notice, no great raves.
A shame, really, but also a grace, one to savor.
It might not be the same
If the marketers got a sniff of it,
folks setting alarms, out in bunches,
making it a crowded game,
flipping down their shades at the first sign of yellow,
probably adding some kind of Bloody Mary rite to it.
No, let the dawn stay hidden,
a gift for the early risers ,
like those who pull over
and write an ode to its beauty