from · the east · spring · beaufort 3

the orient

the orient arrives in march, with the early sun, smelling of warmed dust and a country it has crossed all night. it is dry where the marin is wet, and slightly warm at the edges, as if it had pressed itself against something at dawn. first light tilts with it.

it carries old pollens, the resin of a tree that does not grow here, the chalk of a road in a distant town. in the labyrinth it gets into the library and lifts the corners of certain pages — always the right-hand pages, never the verso. by ten in the morning a book left open will have read itself two leaves on.

indoors it sounds like a paper bag being slowly opened. east-facing windows hum a single note. the orient is held to be a clarifying wind: decisions taken under it are believed, by some, to be the day's most honest. small rituals are completed in its hour.

field note · iii · on the morning the orient began, the curtain in room seven faced east of itself; that is, it had reversed in the night, and we did not know how.

marin · white · january · atmospheres · dawn