Pacific Standard Time

The dishwasher chortles and swishes from the kitchen, like a dancing girl, surreal and boxlike. The timer set for 10 minutes silently whiles the time away...another second another, and here I am already a minute and a half into this morning’s wake-up writing. Daylight savings time, my computer knows for sure, and now it’s still 4 minutes out, while most of the other clocks beam blue digital time from yesterday, and hour later than it really is. 7:22, well, probably 7:26, and it’s brightly light out, despite the dense cotton that blankets us from the sun today, and the great blue sky. The sheen of fall/winter/spring is on the road, the roofs, the cars, out the window to my right. The cedar hedge that fills half my view is festooned with droplets that will appear to be in residence for months to come. It must be raining, but the rain’s too fine to see. I’ve lit a candle, strange for morning, but its flickering light gives life to the little clay houses at the edge of my desk, sets the water in the jug to gleaming like a magic crystal ball. My writing is self-conscious today, knowing it’s going public, just as it is, out there in my brand new blog, but when I started this practice, a year or so ago, it was shy, too, and hesitant, and I know my mind will set itself free soon enough, and the images of the eyes will find the freeway - zip into the brain, zip out through the fingers, the linguist on the road nimble in translation.