I have a tendency to be up all night, be it working, writing, or other. Not long after we, my wife and I, got a very nice new (second hand, but new to us) couch that allows one to recline comfortably facing the balcony windows, I would find myself there looking out into the night, sometimes as dawn broke. It’s an interesting time of day for me, dawn—especially first light. It has always filled me with equal parts anticipation and anxiety. Dread even.
I’m sure the anticipation is normal. It almost has to be. A new day manifests, with new potentials, even if I’m already tired. The anxiety probably comes from a variety of experiences that have taught me to expect unpleasant things to break with the day, the sort of experiences that instill fear and foreboding deep in the psyche. Here I’ve tried to convey that sense of ambivalence, using imagery gleaned from a passing storm front.
First light gathers
First light gathers above the
Huffaker Hills, above the
bulbous shadow of the
old Virginia Mountains.
Slowly it grows behind
cataclysmic clouds,
gray shapes etched dramatic
on the moving void.
Wind is heard against
roof and walls, against
wide glass doors through which I
meditate my gaze.
Silhouettes of unfurling
cottonwood and maple
flail like the wild shades of
dancing dervish souls.
Inside, a leaky faucet
drips. The wall clock ticks
above the redbrick hearth. And
Joy stirs lightly troubled
in her dreams.
