estrange

Will that morning ever be here again, warm and slow and shared? This from the first forage for the papers and a glimpse of the sky. All the stars forsaken, all the pavement cold and the color of the fog. Hungry cats and tattered clothes and fingers numb with the chill. This morning by the thousands while that other one is lost to memory and myth.

Even now the fingers slow, each stroke of the flat plastic keys another meditation. Every letter an eternity spent waiting for a gift. The cool air seeps into the dark room, the computer lit, the bed a shambles from poor sleep. The moment obscured by all the things that are missing. The hour so early and so abrupt.

I would watch the day as it arrives. I would wait for the change in the air and the difference in the light. There isn't much help available. For the clock and the doorstep, for the longing and the sun. Things wind through these brief passages and stilted prophecy. Things move and things settle, the earth a riot rolling in the depths. Adrift on these dark continents, sailing on the cherished and the contingent. Waiting for time to lap itself at last.