Meditation on the Morning Sun

The morning sun is a two-bit player in a scene where the clouds, dressed in pauper grays, shuffle across the stage with lowered heads. Except, that’s not really right, and the scene keeps shifting. I tried to write about it…. how many ways might I describe the sun, what verbs could be attached to it? Shimmered, blazed, danced? Except it’s not hot and blaze feels dishonest – which means sizzle and simmer are also out. Because it’s morning, I’m partial to yawning and stretching or the opening of one, all-seeing eye or casting a glance. Shining feels pedantic, and yet there it is, shining away – beaming at times. It did some peeking, some coy hiding – maybe it’s getting dressed, trying on the a heavy terrycloth robe of gray? And can I even talk about what it’s doing when I know it’s doing something completely different a few hundred miles from here? Suddenly, I feel small and localized – limited to my personal horizons. In Ohio, it’s warming the fields and in Maine, it’s crashing against the rocky shores. And here I am trying to be clever in my limited definitions. And still I play and think… It seems less romantic than the moon – also less lonely. Can a sun shuffle or saunter, or bounce like a basketball? Is it a banker opening up the morning vault of sky? Is it a swimmer’s yellow cap or a buoy in the open water sea? Can it daffodil or buttercup its way into the morning air? Can these clouds be the body of Christ on a funeral card and the sun be his hand and heart beaming rays of sympathy and salvation? It climbs or rises or worse yet, ascends – and I don’t care for any of those things. I don’t quite get the sense of a chariot pulling it into view – at least not this morning or this century. I know it warms the dog’s nose and flank as he lay sleeping lazy by the patio door. It casts my shadow on the wall behind me and lights the green leaves of the houseplants next to me. In more tender moments, it has silvered the steam rising from my mug or painted speckles in the eyes of someone I adored. Speaking of painting, sometimes, the sun is a sloppy artist dripping acrylics across the top of this canvas world. It’s a tall chef in a tall chef hat making eggs for breakfast, spatula in hand. It’s a parent nervously letting go of the seat on their child’s bike as she wobbles forward without training wheels in an empty cul-de-sac. It’s the glinting tip of a fishing pole and the sliver of line dipping down into the afternoon quiet of a pond. It is the telephone wires that droop and arc from pole to pole on one side of a long road cutting across hills and dusty cotton fields. It is this robin singing outside of my window.