Early Sunday Rose Gold Fire and Feathers

Saturday was another somnography, a test to see how breathing goes and how often it stops. One of the most fun things about the sleep tests is that the attendants get you up at five a.m. so that you are out the door and on the road by six before sunrise at this time of year. The moon was halfway across the Sunday morning sky, three quarters full. Just before sun up is a different kind of dark where the silhouettes of images begin to show and the black of night becomes deep blue. The air is still and cool, unheated by the machines and work of day, and smells fresh. Without background noise, the calls of the birds magnify just as they do in the far woods away from civilization. This is what thrills me, the blackbirds that crabbed at me last night upon arrival sit on the wires above and toss out morning warbles, oblivious now to my nearness. I hear the robins repeating call loud above everyone else; a pair of phoebes underscore the frantic solar-powered robins with their familiar, plaintive, two-note song. Oh it's lovely, and I look up to the stars still visible in the morning air.

Getting into the car, the radio comes on with news that quickly gets flipped off and I open the windows to the air, the birds, the green growth of this spring. Driving in the pale of beginning light, the car ahead of me slows; headlights show a young doe at the side of an embankment, retreating backwards into the colorless brush of cattails and scrub. The low light of early dawn causes her to appear as a grey shadow, only her eyes are illuminated from passing lights.

I continue towards the city, to the west with the suburban area behind me and am suddenly aware of brilliant gold and pink fire in the rearview mirror. The introduction of sunrise before the great ball appears at horizon flames through colors seen only in the atmosphere. Ahead of me, lands of green rim stone pavement, blue sky opens to the tops of houses where I can see lights on in some kitchens, maybe coffee, maybe toast; a newspaper. Good morning, my longitudinal companions.

The slice of the world open to sun extends from Baffin Bay in Canada to the edges of Chile at the bottom of the globe. We are all blinking and stretching, or because it's Sunday, hanging half out of bed listening to the radio news, reluctant to put that first foot to the floor. Aw, go on, you know you set up the coffeemaker last evening, and Saturday bread makes Sunday toast. Do we all see the sunrise, does the earth revolve to birdsong and shuffling slippers? If you could listen from the moon, would you hear a million Sunday front doors open to get the paper as the sunrise hit the wedge of longitude from pole to pole? Does water pressure drop for all the showers happening at once? Really, I know the logistics of who may have indoor plumbing and such, but most economies have to wash their hands at least once in the morning.

So it is at night, when cities dim and wicks are trimmed. Exhausted from day business, we gratefully dismantle the accoutrements of diurnal life and open arms towards the realm of evening repose. O sheets, O linens, O washcloth used to swipe sticky remnants of blush and pie from faces, O blankets warp and weft, O curtains drawn, O Sand Man, Nyx, Hypnos, darkened room, breath, thudder, somnus, luna, vault of heaven, closed door, ghosts and gods. Mystery, this stuff.

Ritual here, ritual there; they gets us through. A cooler night tonight, the buildings here are swathed in mists and low-lying clouds, the grateful living things sigh happily for the freshness of the air, the lush growth of grass and leaves. We sleep in bounty, in safety, in love with it all. Sleep well, dream of Ecuadorean pots bubbling in the morning, salute the north and south upon arising; your brothers and sisters are there, stirring, blinking, stretching.