The body is like an unfettered boat. It drifts with the current until it bumps against the shore. The heart is like a cracked piece of wood. It does not know whether it is to be chopped up or smeared with oil or perfume.

Hong Yingming

It is the middle of the night. There is no separation between sea and sky. It is black, a dark expanse …the first thing that ever was. No stars …no moon. But sound. There is sound …the waves crashing to the shore and there is wind… wind soughing through the sieve of date palm fronds …a crackling sound in tune with the sea …a counterpoint …a reason to listen. There is nothing else.

Time passes. Out in the northeast drift tiny lights …they grow slowly, feinting and bobbing in the darkness …the void of no separation in the night without moon and stars …in the wind that sings an evocative harmony with the sea. The lights glide …intense little points of brilliance hanging in the darkness …fairy lights dancing suspended …an intended ballet of long lines and nets and traps that slowly disappear into the darkness.

The first light comes …a gray intimation that insinuates itself upon the firmament. There is light …then, shades of pink and coral and azure lighting a separation of sea and sky from beneath …an horizon … the natural drift of the eye … the place the heart falls off the edge of the earth …the place we bump, unexpected, upon a shore in the pale morning light.

Still unseen, the sun illuminates the imperial, dark clouds that roll up from over Africa …stately warriors that beat silent drums winding the first stories of truth from the darkness back in the time of the void …bringing them into the light for all to see …but none to hear …Africa. The sight of them suspends an intake of breath in the air …a hummingbird of breath in the dark that is leaving, in the light that is coming.

The sun explodes above the clouds, its red surface blinding …triumphant … master over the light that it brings …the darkness that it conquers. The sun is unstoppable without knowing. The sun knows nothing of time.

The light touches the clouds …the warriors recede …now they are women dancing in a circle around the sun, their arms are raised above their heads clothed in magenta and fuchsia and coral and blue. Just as quickly they dance away to the south taking the wind with them. It is quiet. It is clear …the sea, shades of navy and turquoise. The tide has gone out and the waves lap to the shore as if they have tucked nighttime thoughts away shyly and with care. The mourning doves roost singing their woeful song …sandpipers sip water from the pools that have gathered …sparrows peck at the last of dates on the palms.

It is the beginning of the day. Hearts beat near. Hearts beat far away. Hearts beat together. Hearts beat alone. The heart begins a journey with the light of the day, too. The heart is as unknowing as the sun. The heart knows nothing of time. It knows nothing of what the day will bring. It only knows how to go on and on.

There are beachcombers who have come carrying their unknowing hearts, invisible, in their hands. They have taken off their shoes and leave footprints in the cold, wet, salty sand. They pick up little shells left behind by the waves and tuck them away …little broken shells, translucent and pink … sometimes purple …larger shells, perfectly formed… the colors of the earth …striped umber and cream.