Early sky

The radio said “a spectacular sunrise” and I remembered “red sky in the morning, sailor’s warning”. So I went out to see and as I am hemmed in by the city, I climbed up the fire escape to see the spectacular sunrise.  The street light, still on at that early hour eclipsed the sun.  The wonderful rosy sky is still there though.  An Inuit student of mine once told me she could not stay in the South to continue her studies because she could not bear to have her sight line constantly interrupted by trees, buildings, all the familiar surroundings of city dwellers.  “I want to see far, far out and all around me,” she said.  It struck me as a wonderful thing to take for granted that far-seeing gaze stretching out to the end of the earth.  I asked her sister how she managed to put her baby into the wide hood of her parka where he was safely carried about.  ” How do you put him in and take him out when you are alone?”, I asked.  She looked at me with the patient good nature one reserves for a rather slow golden retriever.  “I know how to put a baby in a parka.  And anyway, there always is somebody to help me; my mother, my sister, my aunties.”   So here am I alone in my beloved little house, well and at ease.  When I look out of my winder I see the big brick building beside me and the tree down the lane hacked in two for the Hydro line to pass through.