Estuaries Happen

Can Time become Place?

Sunrise and sunset are places. They are estuaries. At Day's end, while the sun runs errands on the other side of the world, ink seeps over the mountains and through the tired trees, in small ripples at first, and then more quickly in waves. It washes through Agassiz, floods Chilliwack, drowns Abbotsford and Aldergrove, drenches Langley in its spray, soaks Surrey, and splashes Vancouver: a few cities on the sometimes stormy coast of Day. And it is beautiful. We inhabit only the shallowest part of the littoral zone. The alien stars swim in Deep Night like phosphorescent fish in the Marianas Trench, and sometimes the Auroras put on a flickering light show that softens the harsh edges of reality. When shoals of clouds drift by and obscure it, I blink and remember something I once wrote:

Times like this,
The words stay wound tight in my head.
I find myself hunched over old guitar strings
And unravel their language instead.
Under the soft dark of ending days
Thought is worth so much.
On the reels of instant replays
I trace the places God has touched.


Sometimes, I am immersed in Night for a long time. There are a lot of places God has touched, and the harder I look, the more I find. Bright spots of fierce joy, Job 42 moments, warm areas of gentle comfort, trials, disappointments and reassurances. Then of course, there is morning. It seems a pity to sleep; to miss the sun's fiery return. On occasion, I stay awake. When it does come back, the darkness ebbs and drains away, leaving tide pools of black in the strangest places. Morning searches them out and dries them up one by one, because the Day is a place more for doing than thinking, but I know that the sun will always have more business on the other side of the world.