Sunday, before sunrise.
The clock on top of the little curio shelf in the corner is ticking, ticking, ticking — ticking the seconds till sunrise.
Its ticking, which I do not notice sometimes, echoes now in the quiet house. It makes a clatter, I think, and a nuisance of itself.
The double windows looking out towards the lake are only half-blinded. I was only half-thinking last night when I pulled one shade.
Narrow street, alley, almost, leading to water I know is there but cannot see. Two streetlights and a houselight burning white in the blue-gray light of a morning not quite come.
Not quite. Not here. Not yet, and yet already almost gone.
Oh let me sing the song of morning;
let me go to the lake, still pure enough for all that would despoil her;
let me sit on the sand and dig my hands into the grains of it, which are not grains alone but rather are one body, sand and beach and holy earth;
let me go to where the clattering clock will cease its ceaseless giving birth to seconds like pock-marks on a bounded face;
let me go to another, secret place, a morning where the light, like grace, still hovers over all the formless waters.
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