I wrote a poem today.
I was minding my business in my little yard, lifting my face to the sun on this gloriously cool and overcast day -- yes, to the sun. The clouds parted for an hour, and as I stood pondering this day and whether I could call it late summer or early fall I suddenly paid heed to her. She was looking in above the magnolia and between two maples. With her awful harshness eased, contrasted with the gentle grey, she suddenly seemed precious again, and I offered her the tilting back of my head, letting her rays touch my face and warm me. In that unguarded moment she penetrated all of my distraction, my excitement and my anxiety, my planning and my fatigue, burned all of that away and simply held me, like the two warm hands of my mother cradling my face.
And a poem began to lift in me. A sensation as I responded to her touch, a phrase, and then that once discarded eagerness, that determination to search out a notebook -- it couldn't be scrap paper, it had to be a notebook, as this prodigal moment had to be honoured as it deserved. The first poem I felt compelled like this to write since I forced myself to stop so I wouldn't drive my editor around the bend.
I wasn't going to type the poem into this post. It is a first draft, likely to change a lot over time, though maybe not. I like to let these things simmer, steep a long, long while, till we are done. Ready to emerge.
But I think I will share it, anyway. Some naked rawness for this splendid day.
Blessings, friends.
August
Sun
I
can’t look at her face
it
blinds
burns
the core of eyes
reveals
nothing
but
her regard sets me ablaze
kindles hope
action
stirs
silted waters
churns
up what has long settled
now
seen once more
I
worship her – I do
the
sun among such distant stars
the
one whose gaze
can
kill or heal
feed
or foster such drought
such
fire as we have never seen
and
then
come
the clouds
and
she is hidden once again
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