A Poet's Journal: April 21st, 2015

 

April 21st, 2015

Watching the sunrise leaves us with a greater impression of what a day actually is.  When it starts up from the horizon, it does not have its sights set on how high it will go, nor what it must do, but only in giving off light, in clarifying what appears in front of it.  Our day already begins as the phantom of something we want to be, or have to be; before our eyes have even focused on the sun, we already think about when we can close them again; and so for many of us it never really rises, or hardly ever sets.  Perhaps the only thing decent in the world is to watch the sunlight brighten and fade, and leave all of our other actions to disappear beyond the shadow of doubt.

Douglas Thornton