In Darkness

Silence in this suburb of cars and dogs, of roar and rumble, sudden thump at the railroad crossing. But this morning before 5 am, there’s only the wash, the waterfall of cars on I-25, which sounds in my ear almost like the sound of blood in my arteries— that inner traffic. In the pre-dawn silence a bright crescent of moon, darkness visible, the flared edge. Now a dog barks. Now a single bird. Another. Now a car in the distance. Dog. Bird, farther off, this time. Just this one moment of silence before the traffic begins, before the full choir of dogs and birds and coyotes flush with desire, as I begin, shook and shaking now in the lea of in the wake of in the grip of what unnameable fierce beauty.