This morning's sky is a pale blue-white, the color of skim milk. Storm behind us, storm on the way, but for the moment the air shimmers in silence, bare branches stark and still against the new daylight, earth and street sodden with yesterday's rain.

Snow will arrive. It will fall all night and into tomorrow, a gracious parenthesis to the long weekend, but for the moment a finger of sunshine pinkens the neighbor's vinyl siding, pokes through my windowpane, squints my eyes as I write about it.

Usually I rise before daybreak, do my first writing in darkness, but today I lolled, and daybreak arrived before I claimed my seat in the couch corner. I like the clean hues of sunrise; I like the egg-shaped moon, caught out of bed, still rolling across the firmament. I like writing the word firmament; I also like writing azure and cerulean. Before you know it, I will be telling you about the celestial orb as well. However, I draw the line at God's green earth. You will not hear me say anything about that.

I've got no big plans for the day, other than figuring out how to make dinner while watching the Bills-Ravens game that starts at 6:30. I've decided on chili, which can simmer while I'm fretting over the score. Yesterday I stocked up on food for the coming week and made a big sweep through the fish market in search of the best deals. I came home with two whole mackerel, a half-pound of North Atlantic shrimp, a pound of bluefin-tuna scraps for stir-fry, a pound of pollock fillets, a container of flash-frozen clams for chowder, and a baguette from one of the best bakeries in town, all for under $50. As you might expect, I was smug. All of that, along with a whole roasting chicken and tonight's chili, will keep us in interesting meals for quite a while.

So today I'll read and walk and do laundry and fiddle with poems and hang out with Tom and judge some writing samples and light the woodstove and talk to my kids and chop up peppers and onions and garlic and take an afternoon nap and bite my nails over the Ravens's run game.

But for now: This sunlight, etching the walls. This hour, patiently unfurling.