This is from a few years ago. I don’t sit out like this nearly enough anymore.
This morning I woke early. Too bleary-eyed to see the time, I stumbled to the bathroom and then back to my bedroom. But a strange wakefulness kept me from going to bed.
The atmosphere in the house was heavy, warm, and redolent with the garlic and onions I had used in Sunday night’s soup. All of the windows were closed since the cool snap we’d had last week. I opened the front door and while humid almost to the point of fog, the air was refreshing but warm for this late in September. I picked up a footstool and set it on the front stoop. I’ve sat out here at all hours of the night and am grateful I live in a town where it is safe to do so.
Across the street, all of the houses were dark, save the new neighbor’s. They have a tendency to leave their very bright porch light on all night long. It’s annoying, especially when my eyes are trying to adjust to the darkness. The only other lights are the amber streetlight on the corner and Schlafke’s 40 watt yard light. My juniper tree blocks the street light from the north.
This morning, the sky is slate blue. Full harvest moon was yesterday, so the slightly lopsided, nearly full moon, at its zenith, dominates the night sky, sending the stars into hiding. At first glance, the sky appears to be perfectly clear, but a faint hazy ring around the moon belies the presence of a high, translucent scrim of clouds.
I’ve been in this house more than 28 years now, and gazing at the dark wall of foliage that blocks the western horizon, I muse at how those trees were once only as tall as the houses in front of them. Now they tower 50, 60, 70 feet into the air. I still miss the linden and maple trees that used to grace our block. The air is still and not a branch stirs. But the night is not silent. A manufacturing plant broadcasts a pervasive hum. The highway a mile away resounds like a distant surf, ebbing and flowing. Occasionally a dog’s bark breaks into the drone.
I close my eyes, just to drink in the peace. The grumble of a car’s ignition brings me back to the present. When I open my eyes, I can see dim lights at the Brown’s, the new neighbor’s, and the rental house across the street. The sharp cry of a killdeer announces a city beginning to awaken. More and more traffic on the surface streets makes its presence known. The sky is lightening and now the wind chime above my head sends forth a single note. Headlights flash across the facades of the houses across the street and then a car rumbles down my street.
My friends talk about praying “in the Spirit,” by which they mean speaking in a prayer language also known as tongues. It’s a way they participate in those “groanings too deep for words” that the apostle Paul talks about. I don’t have that particular gift, it seems. But somehow, in the silence my heart is lifted and wordless praise flows through my spirit.
I love these times in the dark of night.
The sounds of a waking city grow. The killdeer cries again. A dark form darts across my field of vision. A rabbit. Ironically, I can’t actually see it, but I can see the shadow cast from the porch light across the street. I know it has seen me and for a heartbeat, two, three, six, ten, it sits motionless. I shift in my seat and it takes off across the lawn. While the western sky is still dark, the moon has drifted closer to the treetops. A star appears. No. It’s moving…a jet, too high to make a sound, or perhaps even a satellite floats eastward. Behind me, to the east I can almost feel the false dawn. I turn to go inside and back to bed. It’s 6:00 AM.
Kathy Kexel 