The Loons II

A flutter of movement in the brush by the shore pulls me away from far away and long ago.

Early mornings have always held a fascination for me. Was I awake before and am I now dreaming, or is it the other way around?

“Sleepers awake!”

Rise through layers of existence that separate those who sleep from the rest of us.

When I wake, I'm like a drowning man, in sodden, tattered, clothing, in the cold, inky deep. I see a faint light, far away and above, nothing more than a concept of warmth in an all-enveloping tactile darkness which seems to sluggishly pulse in my veins, blotting out the ability to think, to be. I Kick and claw upward, lungs afire with the effort of keeping a spoonful of air in and all else out. When I break the surface, I scream backward into my lungs as they noisily fill with great handfuls of air. The light of the sun, which I sought out with such vigor is traded in an instant for the gloomy glow of a dim light on the dresser across the room. I'm awake, returned, once more, from “La Petit Mort”, the little death.

Resurrection is but a twitch of the eyelids, a languorous stretch that begins at the base of the spine, an oxygen-saturated yawn to stoke the fires of being.

That moment; that border between lives, is as fragile as the grip of dandelion seeds to the stalk. A puff from a child’s cheeks on a summer day and its journey to death and rebirth has begun.

I gets dreams and life all mixed up.

The Loon lets out a soulful cry.

It’s cold.

I looks down into the bag that I realize I am now holding open in my two great hands.

The glint of her cold dead eyes reminds me of the way she used to look at us when she would iron my trousers on the cold early mornings before school.

A loud splash breaks the calm of the moment, and a frightened loon takes her flight.