Loosed from routine
of morning juice and coffee, afternoon
tea and toast, evening news,
I stroll the shore, pocketing stones
and silvered pieces of driftwood, touching
the shine of rain on lacecap hydrangeas,
watching black-tined crows rake the air.
Pang of return after a long
absence to a place ghosted,
echoic. But when sun shreds
the cloud tarpaulin,
glorious Mount Rainier rises
as though by parthenogenesis.
That this sight will continue
into tomorrows I’ll never see
should console, not occasion
the bronchial, scapular ache
of envy. I should live in the moment,
like Aunt Louise at 97. Look!
at the table, she exclaims,
how the glass top catches the sky!
– Ruth Roach Pierson
