just before bed

i am up.  i am a night owl.  i can't help it.  that's just my own make-up.  i'll probably die this way.  i prefer the world at 3:00 a.m. then i do at 3:00 p.m.  i love cities.  i love cities at night when the sun dims and the lights turn on.  one of the greater joys of my life is walking home after work in winter when it is cold -- california cold, not arctic, snow-blown cold -- and the sun has bid us adieu.  the city puts on its winter coat decorated by lighting.  all kinds of lighting from street lamps to the twinkling squares of building windows.  i feel compact and safe walking these streets.  there is a pleasure in anonymity when your visage is in shadow.  you are an other.  you become -- to quote french poet rene char -- simply two legs walking.  or sitting in your house when everyone is in bed.  time slows, darkness stretches possibility toward the doable.  at night you can think.  the world is still, or has slow down enough, to breathe, to stretch, to utter into the ineffable night air, that's right, bitches, i am alive.