With the son of Fenrir still snapping at my heels the curtains rise revealing me in my nudity to an expectant world. For the blink of an eye the cage 'round my heart rattles with stage fright but then slowly, I recall that I'm no actor - I am merely the audience The penumbral stillness of my chambers insinuates under the covers next to me the shape of the beloved. She stirs without waking and turns to face me, her mouth letting out the evening air perfumed in silence and the fleeting surrender of her insular mythologies Outside, the gardener whistles the tunes of his father's orchards, the foreign melodies of richer lands which he remembers fondly with a sense of displacement He clips, trims and tends to his customers his mind searching for the words in his father's voice which the hills of his birth have not heard in a half century The ficus is happy for a haircut, feeling well groomed this cool spring morning, to meet his new bride Phoebus; the two shall wed at noon, before a congregation of clouds the ceremony to be conducted - as it is every day - by the old crow that always greets me as I leave for work I steal away from bed surreptitiously snatching with me kilt and cardigan tiptoe to the kitchen where ritual demands Gyokuro - the crumpled product of Uji district sweetened with shade since an era that remembers the fires of castle Edo, the birth of enlightened rule I sip, listening to the effects of a darkness receding at a thousand and thirty five miles per hour [15 IV 2012]