Sunday, March 23, 2008

Sunday, March 23, 2008. Trek out to the wood. Clear your land. Pitch your tent. This is your morning wake-up call.

(Construction project, men in hard hats wiping their brows, stacks of wood and metal beams.)
Church bells ring for hours outside the stoop on Sunday mornings, waking up those who last remembered the sun going down Saturday night, bright lights falling out of kitchen windows and on to living room floors. The drinks spilled on couches dry in the chimes, each round claiming to break for seconds, then starting up again in the last of winter's breezes. They end at the touch of a frayed rope let loose the wrap itself along cold concrete, dusted and chipped. We remember each song's shadow as it knocks its way 'round stained windows. We hold up signs in starch, upturned lips and flowers we line up across the stairs. Plastic grass and eggs wait in the den. At four a.m. nobody had seen him. We've had worse long weekends, even if those bells ring relentlessly through our drawn damp shades. It is time to wake up.