Amtrak 2

William Doty and I watched the sunrise, another mythography yielding to the possible closing of Amtrak, while a family of four, younger son and older daughter, three amigos and a gentleman feeling older than his days would dictate joined us, spellbound by the deep crimson glow rising out of the valley between two peaks.

One still sleeping rapper, whose hip hop rants I did hear the night before, nearer to this time than any other, holds special significance, representing the potential, the universal potential present in any situation, in any mythology uncovered, in any sunrise in any place with any people.

But, now reality takes root in the existential nature of the sunrise my psyche desires to fight, the crimson pales to orange-yellow and peaches, as the blues, appearing as thin turquoises initially, begin their rapid takeover of the vast space available to such colors.

Just once, the little boy in me chimes out, I wish the blues would leave the sunrise alone and let it be.

Imagine that, a whole day of nothing but sunrises stretching across the morning sky, afternoon sky and evening sky, so that then the sunrise and sunset can at last become one and produce offspring to roam the skies indiscriminately.

Aloud, in my mind, the self who rules the roost these days, says, Yes, my boy, a pregnant sky…I see the birth of untold myths, the potential for new rituals honoring the day the sunrise kissed the sunset and as sky and earth previously gave birth, so too did the sunset.

Consumed by these thoughts and visions, the comings and goings of other trainspeople mirror the comings and goings of societies and the loss of mythologies equivalent to the loss of each of these people’s personal stories and attitudes toward their own and other manufactured mythologies.

They float on by, reflections in the window, ghosts to the inner child receding as the sunrise also fades into pearl whites dissecting the powder blue of early morning sky.

I say goodbye to both the inner child and the sunrise, returning to the sky blue wisdom of Doty and Mythography: The Study of Myths and Rituals.