The dark.   I know the dark.  I have groped, stumbled through, crawled toward, licked, embraced, and sucked the darkness.  I have had my arms pinned behind my back, my gut crushed, my lips stretched and distorted beyond regognition or understanding by the darkness.  I have twisted the darkness so hard, so tightly, owned it and named it and beat the shit out of it until it was nothing but a weak watery shadow the color of an old piss stain. And I'll tell you this about the dark:  it is nothing compared to the power of the light. The light:  in colors; the milky mist of dawn, lifting slowly, gently, just outside the window.  And then a hint of rose, apricot, wispy pale silks blowing around the edges of the grey veil and the black silhouettes of the Joshuas and the yuccas give way to pale greens and sharp white swords of flowers as the sun rises up and up and the birds sing louder and louder and the red-headed woodpecker attacks the telephone pole like a machine gun for no apparent reason, but you gotta respect him because something in him is determined, and hell bent, and I hope whatever slimy bug who was cocky enough to think he was living above any sort of assault is in full retreat mode now, because my steel-beaked friend I know well & he will not cease until he gets whatever the hell he's after.  And it's this way when the sun rises. And the sun now is up, and the sky is a clear pale yellow/white with a hint of the blue that will come later.  It's fresh and clean, and anything is possible.  It's eternity beginning all over again, and the day has presented itself to you to do whatever you like with it. It's a waste to sleep through this spectacle and so I never do.  The greatest show on earth. I may go back to sleep for awhile, and my dreams will be rich and in color, and tell me things I need to know. And when I wake up I'll pull up the blinds and see the sandy hills in the distance and the clouds taking whatever shape they feel they need to, over and over, cottony white or a slow pour of cream over a blue-ocean sky. Contrails cross and fade.  I have no choice but to strip down to no sleeves and put my hands in the earth, take the delicate, fine spines of cactus deep into my palms and fingers and help them all along to divide and grow and divide and grow.  The rabbit sits still in the morning just outside, impossibly beautiful and soft and temporary.  You have to grab that with your eyes, with the eye of your heart, 'cause he's about to take off, like he was never there. Yeah.  I know the dark.  I knew the dark for a very long time. There are certain sects that prohibit the eating of anything that grows in the dark.  Bad things grow in the dark.  Doubt, fear, deception...lift the stone and expose the rot, the cancer, the things that need the dark to thrive. I will never understand the dark again, because the light will always come, and the light is always certain.  Wait a little while.  Give equal time to the light.  Feed the light within.  Many sparks create the sun. -J "beware of darkness" -George Harrison