When is your “blue o’clock”?
Phrase credit: Paul Wittenberger used this provocative phrase in a poem on Substack, and it intrigued me. Some of us know what time "blue o'clock" is because we have lived through one or more. . .
Imagine you are in bed at 4:00 a.m. in a deep but troubled sleep. When you awaken, you feel unsettled, not scared or happy, just unsettled. You don’t know why you feel so strange but wish you could go back asleep and capture the blue calm feeling. But it never works. You can never recapture the perfect blue calm. That is your “blue o’clock.”
i want to highlight Paul’s Substack because he was kind to let me borrow the phrase “blue o’clock”. Though he is writing about dawn on the marsh, it’s a dreamy description which would summon a nice dream as well with geese, ducks, fish, herons and terns! Thanks, Paul!
So thought provoking!
This is a coincidence. Am trying to write about this unsettling waking up in the middle of the night and recently I saw an exhibition which was in a blue room. Blue o’clock is a poetic description that I hadn’t heard of.