nightmorn bird song
december 23, 2008 (the date is aligned with the title!)
1:29 a.m.
any time i am awake from 10pm to 5am is a time of day called nightmorn. a time deemed special because of purely sentimental reasons: of waking up early and staying up late at the same time; of seeing sunlight and moonlight from a screen; of a stillness and silence that pervades even in the online world; of words exchanged: quotidian but never mundane; of hanging on to words.
tonightmorn, the exchange is cut short and i am left to linger. not quite ready to go to bed, but not quite keen on starting on more work, i linger. i observe my plurk timeline and realize most of it refers to schoolwork of late. and i think That can't be all i can say. so i listen to myself for something else.
and i realize, with the help of some sort of faint familiar sound at the back of my head, that i do not hear birds here in london. i see them an awful lot: i see, on my way home from school, flocks by the hundred flying across the heavy gray skies and into the vivid orange sunset when it is about to rain. i see V-shaped lines of them in the mornings, flying across twilight-colored skies and into a similar vivid orange, a sunrise this time; along with stark white jet streams of flying locomotives that never seem to stray too far from the skies of london.
but i never hear them.
an incredibly ironic - but in a good, amusing way: is there word for a positive kind of ironic? - thing that i should realize this by that faint similar sound that is a bird's song. a sound that a few minutes i catch up on as part of reality. coming from outside my bedroom window. it was subtle at first, with long intervals in between, which is why i dismissed it as something my head just played in itself. but the more i paid attention to it, the more often this little voice rang outside.
i get up from the chair i sit on now and go up to the window. without drawing the blinds first, just listening for the sound without visual observation, as if ready to say Oh i was right, i was just hearing it in my head. but no. it rings again. i smile a little in disbelief. i draw the blinds and open the window. i am greeted by a still, cool air, and it is silent for a few seconds, and then
it sings again. this little chirping, half melodious sound rings through the sleeping, unmoving air. this unseen bird is the star of henley avenue tonightmorn, 1:23am. the voice echoes in a way that it almost sounds ethereal, like it were something taken from the other side of nightmorn. i look down the roads within my sight, scanning in T-shaped fashion. the roads are empty. houses are asleep. at this moment the world is lit by a mellow yellow light, and a fox crosses the road, and a bird chirps. a single little chirping and half melodious sound. the air is completely still, even as some of it lingers inside my room after having shut the window. still, as if it stood staring at me in the space on my left, between my seat and the window. still, as if everything were asleep. except for this little bird, and me.
if i close my eyes in bed, it will feel like a december dawn back in the philippines. back in my bed beside the window in mangosteen st. back where i see big green leaves and a piece of sunrise sky through the mosquito screen and the white grills. if i close my eyes, it would almost feel like being back home. morning instead of nightmorn.
1:53am : i finish writing this post and the bird still sings, a little chirp and half melodious sound, half in reality and half in my head.
december 23, 2008 (the date is aligned with the title!)
1:29 a.m.
any time i am awake from 10pm to 5am is a time of day called nightmorn. a time deemed special because of purely sentimental reasons: of waking up early and staying up late at the same time; of seeing sunlight and moonlight from a screen; of a stillness and silence that pervades even in the online world; of words exchanged: quotidian but never mundane; of hanging on to words.
tonightmorn, the exchange is cut short and i am left to linger. not quite ready to go to bed, but not quite keen on starting on more work, i linger. i observe my plurk timeline and realize most of it refers to schoolwork of late. and i think That can't be all i can say. so i listen to myself for something else.
and i realize, with the help of some sort of faint familiar sound at the back of my head, that i do not hear birds here in london. i see them an awful lot: i see, on my way home from school, flocks by the hundred flying across the heavy gray skies and into the vivid orange sunset when it is about to rain. i see V-shaped lines of them in the mornings, flying across twilight-colored skies and into a similar vivid orange, a sunrise this time; along with stark white jet streams of flying locomotives that never seem to stray too far from the skies of london.
but i never hear them.
an incredibly ironic - but in a good, amusing way: is there word for a positive kind of ironic? - thing that i should realize this by that faint similar sound that is a bird's song. a sound that a few minutes i catch up on as part of reality. coming from outside my bedroom window. it was subtle at first, with long intervals in between, which is why i dismissed it as something my head just played in itself. but the more i paid attention to it, the more often this little voice rang outside.
i get up from the chair i sit on now and go up to the window. without drawing the blinds first, just listening for the sound without visual observation, as if ready to say Oh i was right, i was just hearing it in my head. but no. it rings again. i smile a little in disbelief. i draw the blinds and open the window. i am greeted by a still, cool air, and it is silent for a few seconds, and then
it sings again. this little chirping, half melodious sound rings through the sleeping, unmoving air. this unseen bird is the star of henley avenue tonightmorn, 1:23am. the voice echoes in a way that it almost sounds ethereal, like it were something taken from the other side of nightmorn. i look down the roads within my sight, scanning in T-shaped fashion. the roads are empty. houses are asleep. at this moment the world is lit by a mellow yellow light, and a fox crosses the road, and a bird chirps. a single little chirping and half melodious sound. the air is completely still, even as some of it lingers inside my room after having shut the window. still, as if it stood staring at me in the space on my left, between my seat and the window. still, as if everything were asleep. except for this little bird, and me.
if i close my eyes in bed, it will feel like a december dawn back in the philippines. back in my bed beside the window in mangosteen st. back where i see big green leaves and a piece of sunrise sky through the mosquito screen and the white grills. if i close my eyes, it would almost feel like being back home. morning instead of nightmorn.
1:53am : i finish writing this post and the bird still sings, a little chirp and half melodious sound, half in reality and half in my head.
