“I am the sound of children’s babble, the lullabies of mothers and the naked whispers of men”.
Dawn Changes Everything is a collection of miniature mediations on the magic that everyday situations evoke in us. In turn ecstatic, playful, nostalgic, and erotic, these pieces of poetic prose explore time, memory, and our sensory experience of the world.
Dawn Changes Everything is available as paperback and e-book on Amazon.
Click Read more for a selection of pieces
The Way of Tea
Autumn has enveloped Kyoto in its most glorious colours; drunken Gods have painted the trees in fiery crimson red and luminescent yellows. The moist smell of temple garden moss and fallen leaves evokes the melancholy sense of mono no aware, the passing of cherished things, and invites a chill in the air.
The woman in kimono kneels down on the straw mats, and with meticulous, carefully choreographed moves, pours the scalding water from the earthen pot. A single flower in a clay vase is shadowed by the strokes of ink on a calligraphy scroll. The rustling of garments and wooden sandals on the straw, the sweetness of the leaf-shaped confection before the draught of bitter green tea. Our five senses aflutter.
Ichi go, ichi e: one encounter, one moment. Space folds in upon itself. Time rests, in silence.
The whole universe is indeed present in this secluded moment, as I feel waves of pleasure spread from your body, intensely cat-like in its crouched position, radiating outward to envelop the corners of this, now our, world. Soseki imagines a three-cornered world: the corner of common sense left out, perhaps forgotten, perhaps waylaid.
Yuu agari no onna – Woman Coming Out of the Bath
I am a child of the oceans, she confides, of the freezing depths and the warm lagoons, my mind intoxicated by the winds from the sea, traces of salt drying on my skin, a child in search of home, seeking solace in lakes, streams, showers, baths. I desire elemental fluid, waters running down my body, a chaotic multitude of patterns on my skin, I need to be submerged, enveloped, cradled and numbed by the heat of the waters.
I cannot possess your body by merely looking at it, by discovering its shapes and contours, soft curves and sharp angles, the pattern of hairs on skin or its history of wrinkles and little scars. From every perspective, your body hides part of itself, reveals less than it conceals from view; the reality of its presence, solid, the essence of its movements, graceful, escapes even my most fervent gaze.
Of course, if I can touch, use my own body for exploration, I enter into and submit to an entirely different realm of the senses. A tiny patch of I, a surface of skin that is already dead, four fingertips pursue an itinerary of desire on that body, you, tracing inscriptions of lust, kneading flesh, scraping lines of possession with fingernails. But by teasing, exposing the surface of your body, its alterity is revealed, its obeisance to its own laws, passions, and convulsions, even when I draw it into the space of my desire.
The skin of this other body, yours, shines in its wetness; beads of moisture decorate your forehead, drops escape from the long black hair glued in strands to your back. The water flows along your surfaces, delineating and polishing its curves like it would the bed of a stream, confirming the geography of your body, giving it relief. The stream branches out into rivulets, randomly crisscrossing the pattern of hairs on your body, smoothing its design into streaks, enveloping every pore.
The water splashes everywhere; it follows the contours of your body into its most hidden places, tingles where the skin folds back upon itself, awakening nerves. It splashes from all sides, needles of pleasure hitting you from all directions, confusing and redrawing the awareness of surfaces and limbs, making you all arm, all thigh, all back.
The waters stir, and your body undulates, inside a shallow wave. The water streams past your legs, your slow movements creating gentle currents, softer than a caress; now you are only these legs, the rest of you melted, liquefied. Your body, water, floats in water, your body hangs, liquid, hot. Your body, at rest, is turned inside out, its sensory surfaces, numbed, spreading; its inner, heated core radiating well-being.
This is how my eyes take possession of you, this is how I caress your skin, cover your body, glide along it, dispersed in liquid paths that find their way upon you, enveloping you in my warmth, holding all of you, everywhere, inside your ears and mouth, between your toes. I am this water that cools and burns, that washes over you, I flush away dirt and tiredness, soothe your muscles; I am this water that makes you shine, resplendent, the heat that flushes your chest; I am this water that makes you the most languorous, sensual, and intoxicating of women.
And as you step out of the bath, I long to be the multitude of tiny silver droplets that glide over your skin and, spent, crash to the floor.
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