In the night.
I went for a three hour walk tonight. Something in me needs the night, to be out in it. I crave the feel of it on my skin, so unlike flesh with its heat and roughness and need, yet no less arousing to the senses. It is cool and silken, teasing out a desire to lay bare ever more skin to its caresses. Indeed all the senses seem more acute, the information they receive more subtle and complex than in daytime. The scents that arrive in splendid profusion once the cars and the people and the terrible, wilting sun are gone, they are a treasure to those who can perceive them. Night-blooming flowers come to the fore, and grasses, then the light freshness of fruit growing in leafy bowers and the heavy scent of walnut trees. Even the spoor of nocturnal wildlife is evident, if you are attentive. The hush is soothing, since my hearing is so easily overwhelmed, but in that stillness is music, as well. Night birds, crickets and frogs sing, leaves rustle, mournful trains sound from a distant track. In one lovely instance, a guitar was being quietly played in a cloistered yard as I passed. The air even tastes different, purer and less harsh.
It is a reminder of what we have given up to have this polluted, depleted modern world, of how much we miss in our dependence on it. And of how welcome we would be in that less garish world, if only we didn't fear the dark.
It is a reminder of what we have given up to have this polluted, depleted modern world, of how much we miss in our dependence on it. And of how welcome we would be in that less garish world, if only we didn't fear the dark.