I awakened, but I haven't slept. The ice and rock enjoined are too cold a bed for me. Dreams, now but moments past, alluded to warm fingers reaching out from sun onto these vast glaciers, caressing these mountain slopes, the ones I cling to - awaiting. Night is imagined racing far to the hills to the west, chased by the light whose warmth also fills me with hope. How unreasonable these games the mind plays that I fear the light will not come, as if all days past are alone with no more ahead to greet them. But, admittedly, I fear it isn't unreasonable, so long has night been here with her stars and moon, with her grey shadows that a man shouldn't be ashamed to wonder, would ever the day be breaking?
I am miserable without it.
Again, I am pulled from the warmth of dream-induced lies. I am cast into this moment, brightening. Hope ringing in my bones that are shaking in anticipation more than they should have been (I am cold but not that cold). With my coat pulled close, my legs dangling down steepened slope and my eyes straining for any hint, any at all more than I have already seen. And there (!), there it is, blooming. A half circle above horizon, brighter than anywhere else. Not the sun, but her radiance and surely where she would soon rise.
More time goes by and still, nothing. Not the sun, not yet. I wait more. My eye lids growing heavy, they close.
I didn't know if it had been a minute or ten, whether hours had passed or days. I didn’t know where I was for a moment, but soon I did - I remembered. The moment was near, time before had in comparison passed swiftly. Now seconds became fractional, flowing like glacier ice down this mountainside toward where I was to be witness, caught up and enraptured, pulled from the cold.
Beyond the edge of Earth spinning, sun marched on toward me. Liquid light oiled the surface of horizon, remaining quiet and content. More light harnessed the night and chased it away, but the sun's body still had only shifted a fraction.
Infused to this time I was witness to, I awaited, lost in the vision of what befell night on bloodied horizon. What I saw all men have seen since the dawn of time, all creatures have yearned for and still long for every day to come. Exploding then was dawn breaking. Her light shattering the night like a glass mosaic. Mouth unhinged and hung open as if it were made of wax. Every part of me suddenly so very warm and alive, happy. My mouth closed and formed a BIG smile.
So there alone on my icy ledge, the world had appeared as it was, no longer alien. To welcome it now brought a sad feeling, but memory of it persists, burned into my very soul.
