THE DOUBTFUL HOUR
Or, maybe it is dawn. Maybe dawn is the most melancholy hour, not twilight. Or, more specifically, that moment just before dawn, when the light is barely up. I set off early this morning, very early, for a flight out of town. And that hour brings back many such hours, in other places. A time of taxi rides to meet other flights. Of the most loneliest and desolate of feelings. Driving with me this morning was Rainer Maria Rilke, gently intoning “Solitude” …
Solitude falls like rain in that grey doubtful hour
when the streets all turn into dawn
When all men, who hate each other, creep
together into a common bed for sleep
while solitude flows onwards with the rivers
when the streets all turn into dawn
And later, the rain did fall, in another city. Different rain, heavy mournful drops. As though the dawn had presaged such a thing. Do taxi drivers feel this melancholy? Those who seem most steeped in this time. Ferrying home those still finishing off the night before, with their spirits slowly melting … the moments of regret … the poignancy of anticipation … of what is to come, or never to come …
When those who are hopeless and forlorn and sorrowfully alone,When all men, who hate each other, creep
together into a common bed for sleep
while solitude flows onwards with the rivers
Early Morning, Hyde Park, London, June 2007, JB
