WATCHING IT GET DARK

And Sunday night, sitting in a little chair on the big beach at the very tip of Matsunoura while Keech fished his way up and down the coastline, I did nothing but watch it get dark.

No having a beer, no talking with a friend, no swimming, no barbecueing or eating or fishing, no nothing, just sitting there watching it get dark, watching the sky and the water meet and join in one color, the nightly union that begets each tomorrow and it was splendid, being alone and un-aimed in that vast unpeopled space, not a trace of self-consciousness in sitting there, boots in the water not even fishing and who cares, one needn't do something to do nothing, and as the night came, a big cloudy hand caressed the mountains and wrapped me in the chill of fogged-over stars and rumors of a half moon like a lovely woman peeking through a doorway, and I sank into a dream of the dream of the fish and the worms as I rose into the rain and whirled through forever on a speck of dust worth all the weight of gold with eyes wide open, staring far, far into the dark.

What need of spiritual guidance, when there is the night?