Starting Here

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life –

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

William Stafford (from The Way It Is)

Daybreak in December

Many mornings are the same:  A hint of light behind the black silhouette of the Catalinas and, higher, Venus suspended brightly in the dark clear sky just before daybreak.  But some mornings are different this December.  One morning the sky behind the still dark mountains seemed cloudless but in the half-light before sunrise it glowed with an almost fluorescent sheen, an amalgam of silver, salmon, champagne and light lavender, suggesting the thin transparent veil of cirrostratus cloud.  There are also the few times altocumulus clouds make their appearance like ploughed fields rippling across the sky, glowing orange, red and pink at sunrise.  This month we had storms rolling in from California.  They brought lenticular clouds, wave crests stacked one upon the other, breaking over the mountain peaks. One morning I was up a little earlier than usual; just after 5:00am.  Standing in the driveway where I had just picked up the morning paper I looked out across the dark sky enjoying the morning stillness before the start of another day, when a meteor, suddenly appeared, tracing a long arc down towards the north-west horizon:  One of the Geminids no doubt, offspring of the 3200 Phaethon Comet but, for me, a shooting star, a spark of the divine.

A Meeting

I once asked our nine-year-old granddaughter what she most liked about her visits to Tucson. She replied unhesitatingly that it was the night she, Lil and I sat cuddled together under a blanket on the back patio and watched the moon rise over the Catalina mountains. It was dark and cold. We sat looking into the blackness until a faint profile of the mountains slowly started to appear, and then a silvery glow began to emerge behind Mount Lemon. It grew brighter and brighter until the silver flash of the upmost curve of the moon exploded over the peak of the mountains. We watched in silent awe as the moon rose into the sky in its full splendor.

And I remember the poem written by my Aunt, Katherine Woodman

IS THIS WHERE WE MEET

Is this where we meet, John Moon
In a frozen night when old snows
Thinly cover the brown land?
Our glances flit through fir trees,
Tall bare trunks; you brush my cheek
Reaching lightly over my shoulder,
Then swing around in the sky
Till we meet face flooding face.
So we ride through the night, John Moon,
Finding no particular reason
For such unexpected mating
In this cold season.