sunrise

Meditation*

He arrives at shore’s edge, just before sunrise.
He’s brought just one rod with him, all he needs.
He baits the twin hooks with shrimp,
Sets feet in the moist sand,
Places fingers by the first line guide,
Releases the reel bail,
Tightens his hand on the rod’s grip,
And steadies his breathing.

He faces the horizon, waiting for the sun to appear,
Then casts just beyond the submerged dune.
Each incoming wave bends the long rod’s tip,
Each pull back to the sea lets it straighten.
Rod bends, rod straightens, again and again.
The pulse of the sea and the pulse of the planet
Becomes the pulse of the man,
All now beating as one.

*Reworked from an earlier version

A Silent Unfolding

.


He arrives at the entrance to the beach during day’s first twilight,
And, as occurs on occasion, the old man stops dead in his tracks
And plants the base of his surf fishing rod in the sand
While he beholds the majesty of the unfolding scene before him.
The sun is still a few degrees below the horizon, 
Yet the sky and the calm sea glow with early gold,
And night’s reign in the west begins to fade.
.
He lifts his rod and kicks loose the sand from its grip,
Then takes the well-trod curving path to shore’s edge, 
Guided by the rope line that traces each turn,
Shielding the tall grass that bends in the sea breeze as if in prayer.
.
Having cast his line, he sets his rod in its sand spike
And watches intently the golden horizon for the sun’s silent arrival.
As before, he is filled with a wondrous sense of heightened clarity,
Allowing him to see himself both as a witness to a divine unfolding,
And as a thread woven flawlessly within it.

A.M. De-Stressing

Soon it will be seven, and the bridge master will raise the drawbridge for the first time.

The gears will bellow as the plates bend upward tall-masted ships released at last will ease through the opening churning the waters as they pass soon after that the plates will descend again and the line of waiting cars long now will pour onto Cathedral Street hood-to-trunk hand-to-horn jockeying for too few parking spaces this will play out every half hour again and again and again till seven p.m.

But not at this moment.