ISSUE: Summer 1944
Sunrise tumbling in like a surf, of flowers.
The foam rose-petals, curling thousands, lightly crumbling
Away into light. Waking to this, how could the eyes hold
The shape of night’s barren island, the cold cliffs
Climbed in sleep? Or mind remember
The stained face of the world, the burned sore scabby face
Of poverty and war?
Into that sea of light the spirit waded
Like any child at morning on the beach,
And saw nothing but giant combers soft as roses,
The mothy spume fading to lightest air.
There like a child it lingered,
To find the shining shells just beyond reach; to build
Towers of whitest sand, brighter than dogwood flowers,
Or colored like a freckled fawn; To stand, quietly,
Watching the immense marvel of morning
Rolling toward him all its uncreated hours.
