I do not really drop off properly again after 3AM. I don’t mind dozing. The temperature is comfortable for it in the mid teens. Doors are open to the cool. Taking out my ear plugs I hear sirens (and more sirens). In the quiet, I pick up the sound of a freight train crossing the river, heading east. The clock ticks. It’s just gone a quarter to five and the newspaper delivery is rolling along the road below with its familiar, soft, intermittent growl. Here we are in space and time.
Scripture entitles the day: the ending and beginning. Later, Jane Hirshfield’s poem ‘Ghazal for the End of Time’ will come to me. Ascensiontide: dazzling darkness.
Just before I head out into twilight, remembering it’s riverside morning market day decides my route: eastward into the shadow of the hills. Souped up, speeding little cars, driven by young men, bomb along the deserted early morning roads, throbbing and bumping with loud music as far as the ear can hear. A still morning, so quite a distance! Have they slept, I wonder? It’s hard to imagine they’re up so early. Something about their aliveness (and self-centredness) makes me smile. Testing one’s limits at this age is a serious business. And how exhilarating certain ways of spending energy are.
I spy the first gardenia blossoms of the season not far from the ancient wooden gate of the temple and stop by a roadside lavender bush to rub my hands over the blossoms and enjoy the scent as I wend my way into the daylight.
