Looking out from our balcony
at the height hawks fly by,
visitors sometimes
shade their eyes
and say appreciatively,
“Wow, what a view…”
adding
“…but after a while
you probably
forget to notice.”
But I still notice.
Every day.
And every night.
For sixteen years…
I notice the horizon
laid out before me
left-and-right
as far as I can see.
How the sun
travels along it
throughout the year.
How sunlight
enters the house
each day
from an incrementally
changing direction.
Early in the year,
cool, bright morning sun
sidles into the balcony
and living room.
A few months later
it has made its way
around an odd angle
of the house
to stream in
warm and full of glory
through a different window
in the living room
and also the den.
Later still,
the sun is a piercing,
early-morning alarm clock
going off in
our bedroom windows.
And all the while
our heat-seeking,
little lazy-boy cat
is following the sun
on its leisurely
year-long stroll
through the house.
I notice the way shadows,
soft purple-gray
in late afternoon,
begin to creep up the hills
on the far side of the valley.
Sometimes,
for a few moments,
a single tree,
a patch of mustard grass,
a bright-white building
is caught in a spotlight
of late sun shining through
a cleft in a cloud.
Sometimes
when the higher ridge behind us,
is backlit just so
from the West,
its translucent bronze shadow
is thrown down the hill
in front of us,
the top of the shadow
like it’s laser-cut:
a line of trees in silhouette.
While the sunsets
stage all their light shows
behind the house in the West
away from our valley view,
there are evenings
when brushstrokes of blue-gray,
lavender and bright-pink
veined with silver-gold,
streak the East, too,
as if the sunset blew
a kiss across the way.
I notice the way
the valley changes
its mood and vestments
with every season.
Lush grass-covered hills
of chartreuse and
every shade of green
arriving with the rains
of winter and early spring…
only seeing, I feel the grass
soft and cool on my skin
and imagine my body turning,
rolling down those grassy slopes.
The same grasses, dormant,
in summer and early fall,
turning tawny, golden,
like a suntan on the hills
napping in the sun.
Later in the year
across the valley floor
and on the hills
among the redwoods,
evergreens and olive trees,
autumn comes sparking into view—
(safely) setting aflame
the Liquid Amber, Pistache,
Sycamore, Ginko, Birch,
and Japanese Maples,
always inciting
some need in me
to bring the festivities indoors,
with berries, pumpkins,
pinecones and candles,
gathering in nature’s
color and warmth.
I notice when the fires
are five-alarmingly real, too.
Raging infernos
half a state away
blackening the canyons
and suburban enclaves
of Southern California—
firestorms tearing through
vineyards, cottages, entire towns,
just north of us
in Wine Country—
the fallout from
these wildfires racing
across the suburban/wild interface
is literal,
falling on the entire state,
even this pristine valley,
all suffering to breathe
under one shared, choking
dirty cloak of smoke.
We hardly need
broadcast alerts
warning us
not to go outside,
not to leave the house
without a mask.
The air is evil,
filthy gray, fibrous,
so dense it hides
the blue light
of the sun’s spectrum,
turning the very daylight
a harrowing,
burning-fires-of-hell orange.
The fires weigh on your mind
as much as your lungs
knowing what you’re seeing,
what you’d be breathing
were you to go outside,
is the very substance
of other peoples’ lives,
the ashes, gasses and grit
all that is left of
other people’s lives:
their livelihoods,
their neighborhoods,
their schools,
their homes and
every little treasure,
toy and teacup inside.
The dirty smoke-acrid air
hangs heavy there,
like grief, like a sadness,
eventually dissipating,
eventually leaving.
But you don’t forget.
When we finally return
to freshened days
and freshened nights,
I notice how the valley
dotted with lights,
feels like my village,
homes following the incline
and undulations
down the hillside below us,
across the valley floor
and up the other side,
lit with other people’s lives.
The oak trees
in the middle of the night
cast rune-like shadows,
mystic messages
on the moon-white
ground below.
And sometimes the moon
rising up over Mt. Diablo
seems a luminous balloon
rising, rising,
getting larger and larger,
inflating so enormously
it looks like it will burst…
until a moment later
there it goes free-sailing
above the mountain
and the only thing
bursting is my
sense of joy.
And some years,
like this one,
I notice fall and winter
come in with wet feet
promising us respite
from another drought,
trailing tule fog so dense
we can sometimes
barely see
the bare branches
of the oak trees
just a few yards
from our balcony.
One morning this winter
after a night of cold rain,
I woke to see the fog
thinned to gossamer
draped up and down
the length of the valley,
flowing like a white river
in the middle of the air,
clouds and sky above,
the whole lovely valley
damp and fresh below,
trees dripping diamonds,
all nearly too marvelous
to behold.
But I see it.
I notice.
Just a moment in my life.
One tiny moment.
And life is really only this:
a rosary of moments,
a rosary of moments
of one kind and another,
strung one after another,
from beginning to end.
We pray this rosary,
whatever our faith,
with our seeing,
with our noticing,
taking it all in.
This is all there is.
And it is everything.
Ann Keiffer
February, 2026
Image: Susan Taylor Photo/Etsy
