after christmas eve

i woke up in the middle of the night and, unable to go back to sleep, i went into the living room. after candles had been lit, presents exchanged and candidly opened, wishes made, laughter heard, candles blown out, doors shut behind, everything lay now before me, left to itself, in the quietness of another life, unseen, unknown.

this is what the christmas tree - what everything - looks like when photographed in the dark, camera held tight against my chest - our real nature revealed: light.

under the tree, there lay the puzzle we had completed together, before going to bed. i could have thought of some symbolic meaning, the setting was right for such deep, important visions. yet all i could think of was how beautifully the world glimmered in the dark, and how dangerously frail its unsteady contours appeared - dream-like.

there i found her shoes, too. she had insisted to wear these ones, fond as she was of the little white stars on the straps. you cannot see the stars now - but this is how it always is with stars, perhaps. they are never to be seen, only to be imagined, especially at night.

these are the rail tracks of a train which never stops running, even when bridges between here and there have broken down. 

later, when she finds out that all trains eventually stop, she will hopefully have a friend to sing for her: When darkness comes / And pain is all around / Like a bridge over troubled water / I will lay me down / Sail on, silvergirl / Sail on by / I’m sailing right behind / Like a bridge over troubled water / I will ease your mind / Like a bridge over troubled water / I will ease your mind.

for now, she and her best friend chilly willy are still unaware of the big, important task which lies before them (and at which they will fail, i know. i would like to believe, as some say, that failing is part of the music, but here - i honestly don't know). 

things have been falling apart, recently, and how quickly. and now, i wonder at how still and poised they are, peaceful, unto themselves, unaware of grace and falling, all these things that we don't know how to look at. 

you called me the other day and told me that my voice - you had always said about my voice that it had "the sound of bells", and i would always laugh about such silliness - puts you at peace with the world.

i remember how, every time emily left, bagpuss and all the others would wake up. yet here, things hadn't come to life, they were motionless and quiet, as they always were. 

still, among them, in the dark of the night, some stir of life, slight as the drifting of a curtain, came into being. perhaps it was i, and not things, that was coming to life, unawares.