'from such as this, have i drawn joy and knowledge. in such as this, have i found and beheld myself. i will speak to it. it can speak again. it can yield me thought already formed and alive.'

-- ralph waldo emerson, nature

morning knowledge.

i've been rising earlier recently, trying to get in touch with something that chilly autumn mornings of the past knew-- something of a creativity that was supposed to materialise back in the days when my father had to get me up before six every morning. waking up was kin to morning darkness instead of to the dawn, and it meant that even if i didn't actually watch the sunrise from a preferred vantage point, at least i could apprehend with the rising of my own consciousness the glow, then the light, then the day.

day comes. the glow and the light brighten with the advance of time. what i must let go of is the analysis. the glow and the light and the day are not fully enjoyed unless i begin to conceive of them as spectacular outgrowths of each other, unexpected. a birthing miracle happening continuously every morning. it is dark and will always be so until the sea change of the glow. the world is glow and lightens. the light lasts and must be expended into a new phenomenon that we assign a number and appointments to. place it in a book of other names and it is commonplace, teeming millions of them having passed already, more in the future, we are certain enough. 'days are where we live,' says larkin. true enough, but morning in its stages, i am convinced at least for the moment, is where life most nearly approaches meaning.

so when i awake to the empty enchanted house, grown cold with the windows left open overnight, i tip open a book and i don't look for the brightening, but for continuation of the darkness. in my error, i find the light.