VASE OF ROSES

The sunrise burned so bright behind

and within the mists of daybreak as

to overspill a radiance across the long

curve of horizon, broken by the dark line

of trees above the lake, reflected back

into the mist; mirror, mirror of

the sky, a distance in the light of

morning, in threads of mist, uncircumscribed

by any line of sight, yet full of summer

sky stillness, so near heaven, bluebird high,

above and separate from the sun, rising.

My Love was anxiously yet patiently

taking photographs of this new day,

when she accommodated my request

by including her vase of roses,

pink as the edge of sunrise, in a

separate sequence of breathless images,

as if we had suddenly, in a through

the looking glass way, found ourselves

neither coming nor going, deep within

the radiant mystery of the stillness,

where the sunflower wishes to go.

– This poem appears in the August 24, 2015, print issue of National Review.