Bone

Why I Wake Up Early

1 Understand, I am always trying to figure out what the soul is, and where hidden, and what shape and so, last week, when I found on the beach the ear bone of a pilot whale that may have died hundreds of years ago, I thought maybe I was close to discovering something for the ear bone 2 is the portion that lasts longest in any of us, man or whale; shaped like a squat spoon with a pink scoop where once, in the lively swimmer's head, it joined its two sisters in the house of hearing, it was only two inches long and thought: the soul might be like this so hard, so necessary 3 yet almost nothing. Beside me the gray sea was opening and shutting its wave-doors, unfolding over and over its time-ridiculing roar; I looked but I couldn't see anything through its dark-knit glare; yet don't we all know, the golden sand is there at the bottom, though our eyes have never seen it, nor can our hands ever catch it 4 lest we would sift it down into fractions, and facts certainties and what the soul is, also I believe I will never quite know. Though I play at the edges of knowing, truly I know our part is not knowing, but looking, and touching, and loving, which is the way I walked on, softly, through the pale-pink morning light.