4:50 am.
11 minutes to the 5:01, the first train to Grand Central.
I step onto the front porch into darkness.
And into Salter’s Burning The Days…at both ends.
Peter Cottontail scurries down the driveway, his white tail bobbing. A four-legged leaf clover.
“Did I stop and allow myself to be surprised? Or did I trudge on in a daze?” David Steindl-Rast prods in Awake, Aware and Alert. Yes, David, Yes.
My head is down, I’m watching for icy patches. The footfall is covered with a moon shadow – the mind bleached with a word slurry. First Harrison: If you are strained, lacerated, enervated…take a night walk as far as you can get from a trace of civilization – a dance, and the ghost that follows you, your moon-cast shadow, is your true, androgynous parent. And then Kalanithi: my specklike existence against the immensity of the mountain, the earth, the universe and yet still feel your own two feet on the talus. Lacerated. Enervated. Specklike. Immensity. My two feet. Flooded with Gratitude. I keep walking.
4 minutes to departure. I pick up the pace. [Read more…]
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