Light

The sunrise is a gift.
Intensifying yellows and pinks,
Culminating in the sight of our star.

And I thought, as we all turned back to our cars,
Ready to avoid the wind and get home
For breakfast or a nap,

How easy to forget that the day
Is also a gift,
As the grey of twilight becomes the colors of dawn.

Undoubtedly a man born blind
Would appreciate the sunrise.
But I suspect he would appreciate
The persistent colors of day more.

Sun's Rise

I have seen the sun rise several times in my life,
And always I am surprised by how quickly
The light leaps up,
From line to ball,
So bright as to be quickly painful.

Astonished also, my father wondered if that is actually
The sun’s pace across the sky: how can it leap up so fast?

Sunrise on Cadillac Mountain

Incredibly, we know where
Sunlight strikes the continental United States
First.

From March to October 6, northern Maine sees these rays,
But from October 7 to March,
The highest mountain on the North Atlantic seaboard—
Though, at 1530 feet, no more than a hill to those from the
Blue Ridge, let alone the Rockies—
For these months, the sunlight hits
Cadillac Mountain
First.

We got up early October 7, the intrepid nine, ready to see
The first light to fall on our nation.
And though we watched the sky lightening in the east
Before we left our driveway,
And though the sky was a pastel pink as we turned
Away from the coast,
By the time we reached the summit,
And felt the biting wind,
We had no regret that we were not earlier,
Hoping only to survive the next half hour or so.

It was beautiful.
Bar Island below.
And the Porcupine Islands,
Sheep, Burnt, Long, Bald.
The lighthouse at Egg Rock, flashing red.
The small smuggler’s island, now flush with seaglass.
All these spots on Frenchman Bay we now knew and loved,
As we looked out toward the cold waters of the Bay of Maine.

And the grey faded and the pink intensified.
The imperceptible horizon became clear
As the brightening gradually focused.

The rays of the sun lit the clouds above,
And still the sky brightened,
The colors intensified, until

Suddenly

What was simply bright transitioned
To a line of sun,
And the line rapidly thickened.

Garbage Can Lid

When Grandpa took out the trash,
The lid fell off as he went out the door.
Upset, Caleb tried to bring it to him,
But it was dark and cold and I stopped him.
And so he stood, waiting for Grandpa’s return.

After some minutes, he realized he was thirsty,
And when Grandpa returned, mid-swallow,
He ran to him and lifted the lid,
Eager to contribute, wanting to serve,
In whatever way a newly-two can do.

The Art Museum

I have a son who draws for hours every day.
His cartoons pour out of him.
Yet, when faced with the option of art museum or movie,
He would probably have opted for movie.
Except that I’ve been waiting to take him to a museum for years,
So to a museum we went.

And I had the baby in a carrier, so we couldn’t stay long,
Admiring (or not) the works of Maine artists,
The Rodin sculptures and the mobile by Calder,
The pots by Picasso and the paintings by Renoir.
I love art history, and I can talk my way through a museum.

A trumpet flower, three feet long,
Made, improbably, of enormous warped nails.
“What does this make you think of, son?”
“A whirlwind.”

A painting that looked something like a wire mesh,
With sections distorted by grabbing, as mesh does.
“Look at this closely—that’s one of the pleasures of a museum.
Son, see how the artist painted the canvas with a blue wash,
Then painstakingly painted each square or warped shape white?”
“Okay, I guess that’s pretty cool.”

A painted portrait of two children.
On the next wall, a photorealism painting of a room.
“I realize you walked by this quickly, but this is actually not a photograph.
This is a painting.”
The alacrity of attention then: the right response.

Sons from Afar

Six of the Tillerman Cycle I had read.
This last, a Christmas present two years back,
I had skimmed, and found indifferent,
And put on the shelf of “someday, maybe” books.

But vacation is not a good time for pretentious reading,
So I grabbed this book and found myself
So entirely engrossed, I hardly wanted to pull away
And interact with my beloved family.

The luminous title
The beauty of the writing
The hunt for the deadbeat dad
The subtle and pervasive character development

Except, there was nothing he could do.
Except, of course, there was.

You can make a choice to change.
Restoration is possible.

Maine

The colors had not changed in earnest,
But the last day, we rounded a corner
And came across the vista of a lake,
One I had seen before, only a few days prior.

But now the swath of scarlet,
Reflected on placid water of the beaver pond,
Was so striking,
My heart ached with its beauty
And tears rose,
Unbidden.