As i completed this early this morning, editing, changing a word or a phrase or two, it hit me i break a lot of rules writing these things that sort of come off as poems, and for that matter, some might say butchering the language in other writings as well.

Many of my errors come from just writing with abandon, carelessness, poor editing for which i’m famous. But also, i am experimenting with expressing what i feel, mixing my understanding of Faulkner, Warren, Conrad, cummings, Greene, Doctorow, and my brother Joe with my own, and rather independent way of putting pen to paper, or whatever process is now in vogue.

It is storytelling, my storytelling. i do not desire to bring you to my conclusions, even my feelings. i just hope in some small way, i allow you to get in touch with your feelings when i write. This came to my head standing outside the front of our home this morning. i wanted to share.

just past first light,
been a while;
even the early riser
rarely catches first light
in the summer
when first light is earlier
than rising;
looking east nor’ east
Mount San Miguel,
which we intruders shorten
to Mount Miguel,
is resplendent with its backdrop
of the first light bringing gray,
then pink with the continuing
Sol rising,
then almost white, the sky
before becoming
blue, blue sky
of the Southwest corner;

didn’t notice her first;
too busy standing there,
looking at mountain and sky;
it is silent at first light,
cool, even refreshing,
reminding me of late August
back home in Tennessee
years ago:
blazing hot mornings
yielding to preview autumn
coolness bringing a sigh of relief, gladness;
her gleam caught my eye,
the lone gleam in the sky’s vastness;
she was dead east about twenty degrees
above the horizon in azure,
a perfect display of the Morning Star
bringing understanding why the ancients
named her Venus.

the world is silent as first light
grows to dawning
bringing contemplation
of how the Kumeyaay took it all in
before the intruders came
from the south then east,
taking the land,
turning it to easier habitation,
concrete, steel, towers;
draining a great deal
of what it used to be
down the drain, gone;
comprehending, perhaps,
how the ancients came to believe,
create their vision of god,
as others have elsewhere and before
with codes for living;
after all, such a god
would make sense of it all
give the ancients and us
a purpose for living
that makes sense
with Venus, the mountain, and dawn assuring
all is right;
standing there in modernity alone, silent,
taking in the vastness
of Mount San Miguel,
Venus in her glory, the Morning Star;
eternity?

in a near silent murmur,
repeating the Lord’s Prayer to myself,
the Lord God of my forbears,
seeking purpose, solace
in the vastness of the morning
just past first light
alone.