You can keep afternoon and its dwindling mysteries, br twilight with its seedy hauteur. You can have night br with its phony neon and rented motel rooms. br I prefer morning when the air is so quiet the rub br of a cricket's leg sounds like wildness beckoning. br br My feet pad along the carpet like bears' paws br along a stretch of furred moss. The cherry tree br catches the first glint of gold in its deep green. br The kitchen is mine, empty and humming. br I am queen of the breakfast room, empress br of a new regime. Ideas sprout from my head br br like bursts of startled blue jays. All possibilities br lie before me in the rustle of leaves at the window. br Something extraordinary is about to happen— br I could write an essay on forgiveness, br or construct an altar to Artemis with five red br maple leaves, a fish bone and a snake's rattle. br br I have imagined dawn lifting her skirt, the limousine br of night pausing to release debutantes in important br gowns. I have watched schools of light br emerge from a window's shoreline and know that br beginning is always beginning, every midnight open br to a river of mornings, the day a fresh tributary. br br Anything is possible: understanding quantum physics, br making plans for an innocent city. Pain could disappear br by sundown. Night could wear a sunlit dress. br We could start a journey to the new Jerusalem, br waving good-bye at the station where the trains pass br and dawn, blank as a newborn, floods each window.