Sunrise

This morning walk,
pushing briskly,
his buggy bar cradled loose
in my gloves.

We skid through an alley
half brick, half pine
my inner ear trained
on the vertical;
an icy path.

Shaggy pine tops peer
over A-frame roofs,
ice-tinged and bright.
Opposite, the Nordic sun
girds for the leap,
a heavy acrophobic trundle
to a fifteen degree azimuth,
there to ride
a wide half-circle.

The sunrise wakens
my will to elucidate. Look,
the sun! See? pointing.
Månen, he replies, in his Swedish.
Ah, close enough, I suppose.
No. See the sun rising
behind those trees?

Månen! I track his gaze, but see
only the bricks, the triangles,
the furtive pine tops. The sun,
I say, confidence waning.

Månen. Månen! Then I see it too,
emerging between these pale walls,
a white frozen pool in the
morning blue, diametric, nearly full.

On the walk home,
alone after the morning waves,
I follow my sun's shadow,
stretching perfectly before me
to meet his moon.

Nov. '99

---

– home –