A Measure of Sunlight

I slipped past the lower weatherstrip of the screen door to survey the porch deck. Moving from indoor parquet to weathered cedar planks required deliberate foot placement. Midday light washed across the timber, casting sharp, angled shadows against the house siding. Near the base of an earthenware flowerpot, I discovered a slender birch twig dried to a clean, straight edge. Kneeling low, I pressed its blunt tip firmly into a seam of packed moss between two deck boards until it stood perpendicular. By marking the tip of its cast shadow with a pale chip of slate, I verified our first outdoor reference point.