Morning Light - Jan 16 2023

 

Morning Light

Jan 16 2023

I miss the morning light

The thin milky sky

as darkness recedes

and the world emerges

from out of the murk.

At first, flat and indeterminate,

things reduced to outlines

through a dim watery blush.

Until, like an aperture gradually opening

substance and colour return

and night turns to day,

my sense of permanence restored

the world assuming its weight.

So incremental

it's impossible to notice.

But still, I see it change.

Every morning

but never the same.

Today, rain.

A soft muzzy haze,

and the sound

of muffled drops

falling on the roof;

steady

calming

hypnotic.

The cover of today's New Yorker. By Pascal Campion. An arresting image. I couldn't let it go.

I like the way the poem — which is entirely visual, and almost claustrophobic in its detail — ends by suddenly turning to sound. It's as if the observer has been so focused and entranced he is unreceptive to any of his other senses; so there is this feeling of release when — like a held breath — he finally opens up.