By james art 
I walk around the Southdowns neighborhood early in the morning, just before dawn, and for a long time. I do not run because my back and knees say “no” and they punish me when I am brazen enough to ignore their instructions.
I do not wear headphones when I go, I prefer to relax in the thought, to experience sounds – the slight clatter of the trucks on I -10; Canadian geese playing sweet, flying in torn V-shaped forms of the top of the trees as they make their way to the retention lakes in Ruzan; The ghostly, throat owl hidden in the crowns of the trees down by Bayou Duplantiier, where the neighborhood passes from lawns and asphalt into a lush river corridor.
The riverside system of the bay runs along a crooked route from west to east on its way from university lakes to the merger with Dawson Creek. The trees that are standing guards are covered with poison ivy, cat spikes and pepper vine, a diva area, forming the southern border of the neighborhood.
There is little movement in the twilight. Sometimes the cheese is twisted by the fire station of Perkins Road, reminding that Southdowns sits hard in the middle of South Baton Rouge. Cars carrying students to Liberty High and St. ALYSIUS and GLASGOW MIDDLE, and the LSU working crowd; Those who pass from Lee to Stanford have not yet appeared.
Walking dogs, some with bright LED safety lights appear from the dark. From a distance, all I can see are the lights piercing green and red, which wear ominously over the street, a set of glowing strips of light high and one near the ground. Weaving bicycles approach and move away, the headlights become larger, brighter. The red taillights become smaller and disappear completely in the dark. Sometimes cyclists wave or nod. Sometimes they don’t, strive for the dark road.
Cats, neighborhood disputes with dubious intentions, sneak and come out of the shadows thrown out of the street lamps. Their elegant silhouettes cross the streets, stop and descend closer to the asphalt in defensive poses as I approach. They bump into the mute as I approach and look at me with undisguised contempt as I pass. Their eyes sometimes capture and reflect, just for a moment, street lamps and glow in a sinister yellow neon.
Dogs, those who are not on the morning walk with their owners, are still asleep. From the east, a canvas of pink clouds appear as the sun rises, revealing the kite of Mississippi, graceful and deadly, who find out over your head in slow, round patterns. Squirrels begin their day, doing everything that squirrels do. The kite pretends to be inadvertent.
Some mornings go back, which is good for balance. But I am doubtful and I usually manage to stumble into the small blue reflective tiles in the middle of the street, those that mark the fire cranes. However, the reversing must be good for the neck muscles. I constantly turn my head so they don’t run over me.
The prospect of everything that moves away from you and becomes less, unlike anything that comes to you and becomes bigger, is surreal in the twilight. What is behind you is before you.
Clifton lives in Baton Rouge.
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