Max Patch Sunrise!

A New Dawn, On A New Day

here in the East,

we are blessed with trees

who swallow us within their womb,

who block the sky

and force us into the immediacy

of our own yard, our own space,

the trees in the East even reach up and over our mountains

so that views of horizontal and vertical distance are rare,

one mountain, near a mile high, Max Patch,

is what we term a grass bald,

balds are places where humans have fought the trees,

allying ourselves with the grasses, the mammals’ old friends,

there on the balds farmers in the valleys could bring livestock high

to fatten up on the grass, denied them in the hollows below,

to store the sun in their flesh

so that settler and native alike could more readily

make it to spring and to summer’s productivity,

we get up way before dawn

and wind our way up from the valley

through deep curves and oppressive darkness to ridge line,

and the journey feels as if we are being born,

dark sky appears above us and just hints of the light to come,

we park and make good tine up the old roadbed

where trees continue to rule the sky 

here on the side of the mountain,

at the top we break free into grassy meadow

and a spacious view of rosing clouds at the eastern horizon,

we continue to the summit

where 360 degrees of view 

circles out and away from us,

clouds fill some of the valleys below

as if cotton stuffed into a hole,

the slopes still visible are dark, brooding,

and continue out and out and away,

the Sun slowly, inexorably climbs into the clouds

who don’t seem ready to release the luminous circle into view,

a dark bank of clouds races east-southeast

as if it wants to be a curtain to block the rise,

we are transfixed by the particularities of this new day,

lights breaks upon the world

and Sun and cloud dance with each other,

my camera works to hold the moments

that remind me to notice 

the glory possible in every new day.

by Henry H. Walker

July 8, ‘20