tomorrow calling

As for a moment he stands, in hardy masculine beauty,
Poised on the firecrested rock, over the pool which below him
Gleams in the wavering sunlight, waiting the shock of his plunging.
So for a moment I stand, my feet planted firm in the present,
Eagerly scanning the future which is so soon to possess me.

Amy Lowell, "To-morrow to Fresh Woods and Pastures New"

waiting room

All things turn to wax in the room's paper light. Hands thumb through glossed pages; eyes coax the shy minute hand. A door swings, then laughter comes trailing ribbons of June sun. Brother and sister, mop heads and Croc feet, shadow their grizzled father.

It is a Monday morning in early summer and so they laugh and laugh. The father signs in at the desk while his two tousled ducklings crowd him, yet privy to a world of legs and looming countertops. The boy's head swivels and I find his gaze–so blue and sweet and open.

Then he raises his small hand and waves: a slight wiggle of fingers curled into the palm. I mirror the gesture and it is as if we've bridged miles between us. The ceiling cracks, the clock stills, the wax people fade, and the white-fire day washes in when we smile.

florida snow

glimpses

Know ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore? 

But as in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God—so better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety!

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick