jopomojo

The opening of the gate may be early, may be late, but enter, don't hesitate, this is your time, so seize it, grab the sunrise and squeeze it onto your tongue to please it like an orange ripe with juice, like an ace against a deuce, like a river to a moose, like the time I kissed your lips, like the time you spread your hips, like the gate through which time slips into eternity’s smile, into paradise a while while karma deletes your file from the server of the damned, from the chaos of the slammed, from the ram and ewe just lambed giving birth to a new day, making you light when you weigh the odds of the color gray turning velvety and gilt, gold intentionally spilt across the landscape that we built.

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The focus of the present is to share this moment of mystery with someone, your traveling companion and guide to good manners, perhaps, on this strange journey into the vastness of tomorrow and the day after the day after that, the days lining up like birds on a wire preparing to fly away one by one as you trace their flight paths across the horizons of their inevitable migrations to lands unknown, to places barely born and yet eternally old, which is why you must not let trivialities come between you and the prize lurking in the here and now, the gold nugget of love already in your pocket.

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The swallows, martins, gulls, and chirping wrens pay little mind to me along the shore where Kaniatarowanenneh bends around the elbow of the island, more like morning, scented with the after-rain, than later when the sun begins to bake the air, and future memories complain that time is always lurking and will take the sunrise and the morning on its way to afternoon and evening getting dark, the long night to have the final say, to pluck with death the song out of the lark, and yet again we trust another morning will come when Alouette sings its warning.

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A saffron blackberry sunrise

above the ungainly sweet

potato shaped lump of land set

down to divide the flow of

Kaniatarowanenneh

on its way to the great sea.

There's something different in the air

this morning, a turning point,

not the finish line but the thought

of a new world and this one

changing, changing, no turning back,

everything the same but new.

The river, the birds, the beaver —

all seem tuned in to this change,

this change to what remains the same.

The river is eddying,

the birds are gliding and swinging

in higher arcs than before.

I see the beaver lift its head

above the surface to look

at me and then to dive again

to the secret places there

along the shore, using its tail

to tell me a secret tale.

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1. Keeping Still, Mountain My heart like a mountain in the rain Like yesterday's rainfall I listened to the news As I drove to the sunrise Awakened by a rush of blood My dreams reminded me of love 2. Influence (Wooing) Like a calm lake in the mountains My mind reflects the rising sun Recalls the breakthrough of light As the memory of rain Awakens feelings of joy A lingering dream's sensation

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Gongoozling along Little Venice's canals, I came upon a heron loitering for its breakfast in the grey overcast dawn. The heron eyed me, then took flight. There was the suggestion of a sunrise behind the broken blinds of the old sky. I carried an umbrella. My beloved lay sleeping back at her father's cousin's house. What are we doing here? I asked myself as the need for coffee began to press. I returned and turned the key in one lock and the other, opened the door and found my way to the quiet kitchen, the household not yet risen, discovered light switches and a coffee maker with pods. I fumbled with the device until I bent it to my will.

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How could the wind refuse to blow when the earth and sky make such a perfect playground for it, and when contemplation takes the form of a gentle wandering breeze in the soft early morning? On such a day the songs of birds carry a wisdom without words and the music of the river hums in undulating whispers, the raccoon hails the beaver, the rabbit eyes the squirrel, and among them I go walking, learning from them without talking.

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Treading on the tail of a tiger while sleepwalking can be the best way. Much easier than when awake. Alternatively, to paddleboard across a lake in the summer, my daughter, can be quite fun. If Sensei Watts is right and it's all a game of hide and seek, then we need not fear treading on our own tail. As a matter of fact, we can have a good laugh about it in a few trillion years today. If the clouds above the lake grimace and shake like the snoring sheets of dawn when the alarm clock of the phone implores the sleeper to awaken, if you are that sleeper (or if I am) then let us rise, you and I, even though there is no you and no I, no lake and no sky, but we can play along because playing along, especially in the morning, is good form, and good form is half the battle.

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The struggle of the sun to rise will be replaced by daylight and the calm realization that the second in command can easily assume the helm of the day as it progresses towards a strange and terrible night of irreducible stars to guide and deliver every lost ship to its port where once again the sun will rise as it inevitably does.

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The glory of the sun decreases after the slow explosion of color as of a Van Gogh or a Gauguin — being poor was how they let the coral from tubes of paint squeeze out to the end and fill the whole world, posthumously, with unanticipated splendor. Just like that, I empty my pockets and remove my shoes to pass through the gates of the dawn, empty and strangely alive at the tail end of the dying world.

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