July Light
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:
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.
Tags: listeningpost
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.
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