July Light

Archive Photo of the Day (detail): Tom Dudones

Archive Photo of the Day (detail): Tom Dudones

Each month of the year shines with its own unique quality of light, and so I am at work on a twelve-poem cycle that tries to capture those qualities, tentatively titled “Light Year.” Below is the fourth in the series, written today. You can find the others in the series at All In linked below in the order they have been written:

August | November | May

July Light

Today the light is no light, just a glow that comes
from everywhere and nowhere—not quite fog,
but shadowless, diffused through the muggy air,
and this vague unease that presages thunderstorm.

But other days the hot light of midday shouts out
over the fields, strong enough to put you on you back,
one hand shading your eyes to stare up into a sky
that runs unbroken piercing blue in all directions.

Days that call for sand next to cool water, the bright
scent that sunlight draws forth from balsam and pine,
dappled light that filters down onto woodland paths,
the light that pops and scatters off a rippled lake.

And after the long late light falls to evening,
the moon’s bone-white path across the water,
bracketed by stars and fireflies, and campfire light,
and lantern light that guides you toward your bed.

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2 Comments on “July Light”

  1. Lynn klein says:

    Dale, I must say that this poem captured the light of this particular day in July..with clouds and mugginess prevailing, as well as the dry, lovely clear light of yesterday. Both different, but both July. Thank you for taking on this Light project, and now I will seek out the others in the series.

  2. Mr. Wakiki says:

    in light

    i am writing you
    secret poems

    little blossoms
    like the yellow blooms
    of the coreopsis

    on the edge of my life

    expanding their terrain
    each summer

    the pleasure that has taken
    the july sun and spun it
    into gold

    the way the rain vapors bends
    the earth star into a rainbow

    i write you poems
    in the seclusion of desire
    but in the light of expectation

    of the arching prism
    of a summer day

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