Early Morning

I love to wake and walk outside in the cool of early morning in the summer. The sounds of the traffic are still low, and the neighborhood is mostly hushed, or silent. In the high, brightening summer sky the sounds of the small city dwelling birds are sharp as little knives. Inside the silent house my wife and child curl in the night-tangle of sheets and blankets, skins soft and warm, faces blank with the emptiness of sleep.
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I love the dust-sharp smell of the morning street, the oily hint of asphalt, the prairie-husk of dried grass. Breathe deep and the faint dampness, tiniest hint of warm humidity, fills my lungs with the promise of a hot day.
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I love the steam rising from a new cup of hot coffee, dark richness of grounds and frothy sweetness of cream warming my hands.

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I love watching the gray haziness of the pre-dawn sharpen, shadows forming like bad habits under limbs and behind porches as the light deepens so that in the old way of defining day from night you can tell a white thread from a black.

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I love to just sit quietly under the vault of the Heavens and watch the next day begin.

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Where the Telemetries End

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Brian Turner

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Such is life:

We make love and the dry sheets

crackle in blue sparks. Water

slides vein by vein

over the face of stone.

We share a long night

of breathing. And when the dead

speak to us, we must ask them

to wait, to be patient,

for the night is still ours

on the rooftops of the Al Ma'badi,

with a tracery of lights

falling all around us.