Thoughts from a Thinking Girl

With at least an hour before sunrise

predawn roosters crow

church bells chime

dogs bark

and I’m pretty sure that’s a mule bellowing

lights shimmer throughout the hillsides

spotlights illuminate the neoclassical Teatro Juarez

the baroque dome of La Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Guanajuato

the green and white quarry stone of the University

three bright lights forming an Orion’s belt

from which I have navigated myself home.

Above, dark enough to see the stars

Mars, Jupiter and Saturn have risen early

I imagine us with our first cup of coffee

gazing into the still-black

nodding in greeting

Mars, who was up first, greets Jupiter

both of them lightly chide sleepy Saturn

all three offer the tiniest curl of a smile to the one they see so far below

tucked in the Mexican hillside

our silent contemplation about being the only ones awake at this hour

a kind of reprieve from our usual isolation.

Mornings are cold in high elevation

and it is the lone ones

abandoned decades ago by the gods of sleep

who awake in brisk darkness

wrap ourselves in awe and wonder

an old sweater that will, in a few hours, be oppressively warm

climb stairs to the rooftop terrace or step outside the door or stand at the kitchen window

sip coffee that cools quickly.

We have only three phases

our rise, our set, and the arc we make between these two

a day may have these phases

but that is not enough to rouse Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and me

from our slumber.

No, it is the awareness that one is closer to the set

than the rise

Mars has already died

Jupiter is slowing shrinking

Saturn is losing its rings to its own gravity

and me, well,

I, too, have survived deaths

shrunk

lost three shimmering rings.

We early risers understand this

will meet again tomorrow morning

in the dark

send a silent greeting to ourselves near and far

a nod of encouragement

there is still something we each have to do

in the arc of our journey

until we travel no more.