morning

Dog woke me up today, before 5 am. Outside, even with my grumbling, the sky is beautiful. Venus rising bright over the water, Jupiter up there somewhere I know. A few nights ago, another dog-induced morning, I caught my first ever glimpse of the space station as it zipped by, a million miles from nowhere close to here. I think of the sky over Wyoming, the borderlands of Utah, wondering what the sky is like right now, out there, what the sky would be like if we were out there again, 8 degrees, campfire, a whole landscape unknown and unseen.

I like to keep monks' hours, the darkness my favorite time of day. The sky lightens and Venus fades, and I have work to do. And oh, it reminds me of the poem I told him those last days Before. The day I picked him up from the airport, while we drove to dinner talking of Rumi, of arbitrary suffering, of my wanting to be in the business of joy, rather than this business of pain. He talked of Rumi and Shams, how there is no model of that kind of love these days; and I recited these lines to him:

a night full of talking that hurts
my worst held back secrets
everything has to do
with loving and not loving
this night will pass
and then we have work to do.



And with that, I have work to do.



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