Mourning Morning

There is magic in the morning. 

There is comfort in the earliest of hours: that time when the rest of the world sleeps, dozes dreamily, comfortably cradles itself beneath the shadow of night, pulling over the starry sheets into a warm bundle.

Too often this time slips past us, or is mistaken as being meant for the working hour, as a time that ought to be spent doing things rather than enjoying them. But this is a mistake. This is, in fact, a tragedy. 

A tragedy worth mourning.

Instead, this time ought to be spent sitting, reading, listening, sipping something warm or, as is my prerogative, writing.

The earliest of morning holds in its hand a magic. It is the kind that requires no mathematical system, no organization, but is more something that is felt, something to experience and witness rather than quantify. 

I ought not be writing about it: I should be busy experiencing it. But something moved me to it today. Something told me I ought to.

Those who awaken during this hour, or indeed find themselves already awake, will be familiar with the process of mourning that accompanies its passing. Unlike the magic of this hour, it is a process that can be quantified, or rather recognized, in the coming of light, in the banishment of shadow, the dawning of dawn. With light cometh duty, and with duty cometh consciousness. But here, now, in the time of morning, the hour of dreaming, there is no such duty, but instead only a sleeping world, a darkened sky, the sound of the wind slipping past my bedroom window, and the comfort of knowledge in knowing that I did not allow this magical hour to slip past similarly; that, for the briefest of time, I was able to hold in my grasp the rarity of its magic.

But, already I am mourning—already I can feel its squeeze of my hand fading, the magic dissipating. But no matter: I will bid it farewell and wave it off. I will see it another day.

And perhaps tomorrow, during the mourning hour, you will too.