An Almost Breathless Sunrise

 

The sun squinted in the bathroom window

before anyone was awake.

The light came all the way from space

and through the white gauzy curtain.

I drew in breath suddenly,

filled with day.

 

Then at night I waited as always

for the young-boy chatter to subside,

and almost secretly his breathing slows

and deepens.

Mouth open as if reaching out

to take a sip from a waterfall in his dream.

The last rays of the wonderment of being

a small boy are dropping below the ridges

of my wet cheeks and his gently swelling torso.

 

Peering out into the black solstice woods

stars fall around my shoulders

and I remember to pray to the whole world

and the deities who are patiently watching

from my human halo.

 

My feet are grounded and sighing.

I am knee deep in the glory days without hardly knowing.

 

The deer screech in the new winter air

and lost hunting dogs howl wildly

through the searching dark universe.

 

The green bird in my chest,

Anahata,

She rustles but doesn’t sing.

 

I am in all of these places,

stepping through a collage of memory

dusted with the recollection of the spirits

who were there,

almost breathless at my birth.

 

Art by Peter Sugarman