Sky Morning
By Ursula Troche
You got up before me but I walked into the sky! It was still early morning when I rose and walked up the hill. Going upwards, there was just sky in my view, I could reach for the clouds and the moon, play with the shapes.
I sat down and became surrounded by words. I didn’t pronounce any of them, for if I did, the flow of words would stop. I waited for them to appear like a dream. Moments later I took my notebook out and wrote them down. Some of them anyway, just a fraction. At this threshold where the hill became a mountain, and halfway up was like being on top.
At this threshold the morning turned into the afternoon. Now time flew by the way words had earlier. Only the traces were different. Time is a transparent thing, like glass you don’t see until you reach an edge. Words, on the other hand, are shapes and inscriptions, outlines and colours. The spoken word needs our presence. The written word goes beyond the present. Beyond the tenses too. We read what has been written in the past tense, and so every time we read, times collide.
No matter how early I get up and how high I walk up the hill, that time collision will hold true still. I can’t read words that haven’t been written before. But I can read the mountain, I can read all time on the mountain, beyond the tense, even without tension.
The letters are the hill. Words are mountains. And if you look closely, you might find that the sea is text. There, already, whole, timeless and tender.
Ursula Troche, writer and artist on the Irish Sea Coast, near Scotland. Most recently published, with “Qs and As (Storm Story)” in The Cabinet of Heed, and in Morimaru: “North Sea Thinkers.” More info on her blog: https://colourcirclesite.wordpress.com/.