Arch Street, Philadelphia, Near Dawn

I hopped a train for the city at dawn on Friday, making my way to a client's conference. My thoughts were carouseled—spinning through the unresolved of my work, the recent news from my boy, the book I left in mid-plot a week ago. Wishing for a sweet version (is there a sweet version?) of languor, I disembarked at Philadelphia's 30th Street and began that walk I love to take—from the west into the east of my one city. I'll take any train an hour earlier if it gives me the chance to go Philly urban. Through the grand, elevating portals of the train station, across the Schuylkill River, down Arch.

It was yet early. On their north side, the banks of Arch slope down and then rush up toward the train tracks. There, on those banks, a half a dozen lay sleeping—their worldly goods carts parked to one side, their sleeping bags evenly spaced, their stillness impeccable, and what struck me, what moved me, was how every single sleeper lay facing the rusted rails of the train as sunbathers will line up toward the sea.

As if dreams might be taken from the passing rush and whisper. As if night is made more safe for the homeless in the steady presence of from-here-to-there trains.