Poetry Wednesday, Vol. 109

Looking at the Sky

by Anne Porter

I never will have time
I never will have time enough
To say
How beautiful it is
The way the moon
Floats in the air
As easily
And lightly as a bird
Although she is a world
Made all of stone.

I never will have time enough
To praise
The way the stars
Hang glittering in the dark
Of steepest heaven
Their dewy sparks
Their brimming drops of light
So fresh so clear
That when you look at them
It quenches thirst.

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It's been such a strange spring in northwest Indiana.  We have been sleeping with windows flung open, fans pointed directly on us.  The hottest part of the day has been in the 80's recently.  We don't quite know what to do with it.  Do we rejoice that winter is over?  Do we brace ourselves for that terrible final snowstorm?  The one that will kill all the buds on the trees and flowers in the pots?  Do we prepare ourselves for a summer that just keeps getting hotter and hotter?  The weathermen have their predictions, to be sure, but I don't really believe them, do you?

One thing I do know is that I will enjoy this weather while we have it.  The husband has had to leave the house by 6:30 these days and I get up and make him breakfast and pack him a lunch (while wearing pearls and heels and a starched apron), and an unusual thing has been happening.  I can't go back to sleep!  Those of you that know me know that any time before 8 is deemed a cruel time to wake up.  So if I get up at 6 to pack some one's lunch, somebody had better call the pope and get me on that train to sainthood, because a true miracle has occurred.  The real miracle is that I don't go immediately back to bed and sleep until nine to make up for that interruption.  The real miracle is that some mornings I actually "do" things.  Some mornings I read or get some things checked off the to-do list, some mornings I exercise. 

 Most mornings after saying good bye to the husband I walk around the garden looking at what is sprouting.  Today we have two small anemones, purple, peeking up through the mulch.  Their leaves sprouted first and I almost pulled them, thinking they were weeds.  Today I got to see their dark black centers while the deep purple petals opened up to the sun.  Our forsythia is glorious.  A riot of sunshine yellow, spreading in every direction.  The tulips aren't doing much, but the daffodils and hyacinth and showing color.  The weeping cherry tree is in full bloom.  The branches are covered in soft pink cotton candy.  There is a resident woodpecker somewhere near the house, making himself known.  

I am grateful for this new schedule.  I'm not grateful at six in the morning when the alarm is going off for the third time, but I am grateful when I am able to walk outside and see what beauty if unfolding.  I'm grateful for that cup of tea before the children wake up.  I'm grateful for that woodpecker and all the birds singing over him.

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