We rose early to see the sun rise.
A couple of bikes piled
against the fence on a one-way
A few helmets strewn
like goat skulls in the desert
A jacket with sleeves trailing
like the flag of a war-torn country.
We filed in silence down the gravel, and hung tightly
to the strip of exposed shoulder
of the mountain,
morning eyes unfixed
by undulating fog.
There was evergreen and pine
to seclude us from the road,
but their leaves lay waste
in the dampened overcast–without green–
but dimmed to the worn copper
of an abandoned penny
left out in the rain.
We were quiet in our anticipation
as we sat like gulls
with our knees tucked in,
Facing the vast white glades of ocean
that shattered and reformed
on the face of the rocks.
We had come to see the sunrise but
the only thing that blew light
into the lungs of day
was fog,
Which shrouded the world
in a surreal mask
of fine white paper and ash.
The horizon was blended
into the lost line of the ocean;
I felt the cold irony as
we stood and observed
no rise of day or sun itself;
But the same emptiness that had encompassed our eyes
not moments before
as we lay dreaming.
Out beyond the blurred sheets of
chalky-white residue,
there lay a sun
ablaze
in its emergence.
And here we sat, before its pale abashed frame,
without the eyes
to see past
and glimpse
sweet morning fire.
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