After the First Faint Strains

Waiting is lovely but wait no longer. At 3 a.m. the raspy bark of foxes lends the night gray. Somewhere a stone falls into the sea, tumbling through depths that grow only colder and darker. What is the point of memory is not bad question. We recall the light after the first faint strains of the old song are heard in pithy distance.

So say yes. I stumble through the internal court, bearing its hard judgment with one eye ever on the shifting exits. Perceive the heart as more than a relatively complicated bellows and you're making more work for God than necessary. Heaven resides in a  percolating sourdough starter? Well, something tasty I'll share when you visit.

Perhaps God is the absence of conditions? One hears voices in the odd hours, soft whispers that suggest there is no past but that everything is happening all at once, right now always. We follow the ribbon of blacktop into the northernmost hills and discover a new place for ice cream. One surrenders happily to the Milky Way on a moonless night. Even your distance cannot undo the sweetness enfolded in immunity.

You still wonder who else is awake, don't you? Few laws are as useful in application as "thought will not undo thought." Remember that memory serves a master at odds with your peaceful nature. Liberty is on the far side of longing and no trail leads to it but the one you break yourself. I stay awake until the first birds sing, then tuck myself back into my sleeping bag, stars fading overhead the way I do too.