photo courtesy of www.horizonresearch.org

I start my day by looking at my inbox of emails which have come in over night from my Writing Through team in Cambodia. Besides those, there are the inevitable emails from news feeds which I try to put off til later; starting my day with all that bad news does me no good. But I also receive from Poetry.org a poem of the day. Starting the day with a poem – even if it’s one that doesn’t resonate with me – is a good way to start and acts like a bridge between whatever my brain had been concocting during the night, and whatever the world has been concocting as I slept.

Today I decided to put a poem into your inbox or social media feed, too. I wrote this about a year ago and I hope it resonates with you. Even if it doesn’t, perhaps it will give you a few minutes away from any insanity which might be coming your way.


Sunset on the Horizon
 
 
 
More than the sphere of sunlight slipping
   behind a row of clouds,
more than the harbor’s light blue reflecting
   a day’s-worth of colorful sky,
more than the hedgerow’s green barely swaying
   in the remnants of today’s coastal breeze
 
it’s the shadow, without color as the day turns to night,
of the mountains in the distance yet close enough still
to see their contours, as if my eyes have lost
all capacity for clarity.
 
I stare at it fall from my window seat, propped
by a pillow, cocooned in a blanket of static and polyester
meant to convey the illusion of safety and welcome
as if I had found home.
 
The sounds I hear come from within my own ears.
The only pulls are the nonsense I’ve created
by my fears that I’ll outlast the clouds and the sky and the breeze,
and the mountains themselves will stride off into the night
and I’ll be left awake and aching for a
dream I’ve yet to dream.