Summer's Light

Summer's Light is Different

softer, muted
sunlight sifting through haze.
The crisp mornings of winter
with their bold hard colors
are erased
and replaced with dusty pastels.
And in the evolving light
I carry luggage
of my years
here, in California:
my frolicking childhood,
my roller-skating teens,
my mothering twenties,
my realigning thirties
and the decades
leading up to now--
a time
when I've come to love
open space
and the freedom
to cull quiet
and the beauty
of living
beyond thoughts.

This early morning
outside my French doors
a breeze
waves the tendrils
of a pepper tree
and the rising sun
wraps leaves with tinsel.
Only the birds are stirring:
tweeting, chittering, cooing . . .

It will not last.

Within the hour
as the sun oozes upward
leaves will lose their dazzle
and soon after, the day
will break open,
and I will enter fully
this summer day.

Ambling along a sidewalk
on Upper State Street--
or perhaps in the heart of town--
wearing a T-shirt and jeans
my blood simmering,
my mind extracting thoughts
of where I'm headed
and where I've just been--
I will step off the curb
into a crosswalk
on a street like Figueroa
and notice
the green light
shining like a knuckle of hard candy
and beneath it
red numbers
for pedestrians
of the seconds counting down:
8, 7, 6, 5, 4,
and in that moment,
I will forget my mental chatter
and notice my footsteps pattering on the pavement
not that different from a drumbeat
on a Miles Davis soundtrack
or the soft shush
of brush scrapes
swishing on cymbals,

and I will realize
this day
of July 11, 2015
is swathed
in silk.

Welcome back you beautiful people. Wishing you all a summer of peace, joy and treasured moments. I will make my next post on September 15th.

Hope to see you then,    ~   Aneet