January 10: Light

Swaths of light were cut out of the darkness along the winding path through the park. A hooded stranger dressed in black approached, his strides long and quick. Under the orange lamps that hover above the path, I could make out a nose and a mustache. No light was necessary to understand the greeting. His "good morning" brought me back into the space around me. As quickly as he passed, my mind returned to the distant bellowing of trains in the switch yard. The orange patches on the path gave way to the white and pink waves on the river, the lights of distant cars and apartments and the faint image of the flame that flickers atop the smokestack at the power plant. The various textures of the water met in imperfect angles, like strips of paper that form the chaotic pattern of a collage, smooth and silky in places, rippled and broken in others. The dark water glistened under the brightening pink and purple light of the sunrise on the distant horizon.