Sunrise at the Hummock

The wide sky fills
With lambent light
As I lead you round,
Around the stony hummock.
Like a silent beast,
It crouches at the
Edge where
The wide salt marsh
Meets the soft-ruffling
Sea.

Blue, clear sky still
Softly lighting
As we watch the far
Horizon.
We chat of how we heard
That tribes had used
To fish, and tread
The mud flats, feeling
With their feet for clams
As we watch for the
Edge of the sun to
Tip above the edge
Of the world.
You joked that the
World would roll to
Show the sun, then,
Sudden, rock back
Again.

But all our jokes
And tittle-tattle
Silenced,
When we saw the
Sky begin to gild,
Gold shining on the
Blue.

When I was a child,
I had the job of
Polishing up the silver.
Wet rag, dip into the
Gray, soft, grainy
Polish.
I wiped the silver
And let it dry,
Gray polish dimming
Silver and tarnish alike.
But, oh! when I rubbed,
A window appeared
In the filmy coating.
I looked through the
Film and met light
And truth,
Though wavy and
Distorted.

The sky at dawn,
On far horizon
Looked as though
Some giant hand
Were rubbing away
That blue, blue film.
And just for a moment,
Light struck through,
And truth,
Though perhaps distorted.
That shining gilt
Across the sky,
A window through the
Film, cast across our
World, perhaps to
Polish, to rub the tarnish
Clean.

And the sun that rose
Cast its shining path,
Across the ruffled sea,
A shining road
Across the rippled mud,
Up the hill to me.
It struck in my heart,
And I, transfixed,
Gazed through the
Window of gold.
What broken hopes
And withered faith
May be rubbed clean,
Tarnish on the silver?


Oct. 24, 2007