Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-284) and index.

Morning twilight -- Stephen Dedalus's cosmic address -- Darkness -- The threat of dawn -- A light in the East -- Smiley -- A perfect story -- Chariot -- The endless array -- A year of light -- Down to Earth -- Sun sister and moon brother -- Spin -- Apollo bright and pure -- The sun of fire and water -- Chariot -- Dance -- The day of the sun -- The law of dance -- Not invisible -- The constellations flee -- Mere fire -- High noon -- Shadow show -- Hunt the shadow -- Measure the Earth -- The equation of time -- Written on the sky -- Artificial clouds -- Gunfight in Abilene -- Firmament -- After -- The flapping of a black wing -- A strong metal bowl -- A white-hot arrow -- What makes the wind blow? -- Policeman ozone -- A presumptuous smoke -- The two most beautiful words -- The silent concert -- Glorified sparrows -- The path of the light -- Diamond dust and sun dogs -- Sunset races -- The Nile dries up -- All those cares and fears -- Sic transit -- Feeding time at loch ness -- The evening and the morning -- Two lights -- Nessie and the bat -- The twilight zone -- Three kinds of twilight -- Memory has left the sky -- Afraid of the dark -- Thunderbolt -- The changing of the guard -- Lag -- Darwin's busy plants -- Pillars of light -- Pale fire -- The parish lantern -- A rock in the sky -- The archangel's telescope -- Sunrise on the moon -- The cup of the immortal fluid -- Eclipse -- Infinite -- The lion or the lobster? -- Inconstant star -- Mean time -- The black of night -- Swimming allegories -- This Earth in space. A lighthearted tour of the developmental synergies of life throughout the course of a single day touches on a broad variety of cultural and natural topics, from the color of the sky and the course of the sun to the iconography of prehistoric Egyptian sculpture.