Wednesday, August 18, 2021

! The Pen Moved !

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

 

 

 

 

 

ImagePhoto by Melissa Askew on Unsplash. I admit it isn't the dry late summer conditions of today in my town, but this girl is heedless of anything but the sun right now, as, for a moment, was I.