It’s so quiet I can hear myself breathe. Then he begins to sing. Piercing and long are his calls. The eastern horizon is but a paler shade of midnight blue, hardly an inkling of sunrise, but he knows. I listen without moving. I can’t see him, but he sounds like a Western Wren or possibly a Yellowthroat. I wonder how he knows in all this dark. More curious is how the others remain quiet for at least fifteen to twenty minutes. This time gap is as consistent as the sun. It’s as if everyone is in the silent awe of daybreak. Not a sound, not a tweet, not a bark. Just that single, piercing note to call us all to the eastern alter. So I pray. I fix upon the distant horizon and I talk to the spirits about all I have to be grateful for. Such wonder fills me that I then realize how he knows, but more importantly, why he sings.