Dawn, one morning
A still sunken sun and a sky-high slip of a moon provide just enough light to walk the wooded path to the spot on the river bank where I can see the frosted-over cranberry bog. The sky is clear, but I think I hear rain falling, but what I hear are birch leaves, pouring down, covering the path. The light comes up with a tinge of copper. Leaves, no longer vibrant with fall color but not yet done, are a bit dull, like 1973 pennies. Yellow birch leaves, dullish red maples and oaks (like dried blood), lightly browned pine needles (like sautéed garlic), and those yet curling, cinnamon dusted ferns mix with this particular morning light, this coppery burnishment that moves us into the day.
Dawn, a different morning
I arrive at work as the sun rises over the harbor. I cross the street and strong shafts of light shoot straight across the water, straight up the street, straight through me, straight into the red sandstone blocks that make up St. Peter Cathedral. My eye is trapped. The church, tottering on the corner, is glowing copperishly. I think of a book I am reading, a novel that ties together families and generations, all of whom live and work and love and die in this town whose street I am crossing, and suddenly I know that Molly, one of the characters in the book, saw this same light at some point in her life; she saw the cathedral glow.
A different book
I am reading a borrowed book, and it is about copper. One chapter tells the tale of a copper boulder that once rested quietly on a river bank in the far north woods, the tale of a two-ton rock, a mass of native copper, a benign boulder, and how it ended up being bought, sold, moved, fussed over, argued about, transported, confiscated, and put on display. Today this boulder, which has traveled rivers and great lakes and seen Detroit, is stored away in the basement of a museum in Washington D.C. A few years back, a Native American tribe from the native copper's native land asked that the boulder be returned. The request was denied. The boulder, they said, is not sacred.
23 skidoo
The title of the lecture indicates we'll hear about ancient copper mining on the northern tip of this peninsula where I live, but after more than an hour of talk about Brittany and Orkney petroglyphs, maps of the Atlantic, and 23 oarsmen, I am ready to jump ship. When technical difficulties cause the lecturer to say, "Let's take a break," I do. Crossing the parking lot I hear faint music. I stop. I look around. Through broad second floor windows on the building I just left I see people dancing. I listen carefully. It sounds like "My Blue Heaven," Frank Sinatra.
Night
On the way home I stop along the lake to gaze at the stars. The Big Dipper is low, dipping toward the water. The Milky Way arches overhead. Back where I had come from, back in town, coppery orange lights glow and shimmer, kind of twinkling. I briefly wonder why non-twinkling lights should look is if they are twinkling. Is it the distance? An air quality? The lake? The water? No matter. I'd rather be here, wondering, than anywhere else, knowing.
References:
Dawn, a different morning
A different book
23 skidoo
A still sunken sun and a sky-high slip of a moon provide just enough light to walk the wooded path to the spot on the river bank where I can see the frosted-over cranberry bog. The sky is clear, but I think I hear rain falling, but what I hear are birch leaves, pouring down, covering the path. The light comes up with a tinge of copper. Leaves, no longer vibrant with fall color but not yet done, are a bit dull, like 1973 pennies. Yellow birch leaves, dullish red maples and oaks (like dried blood), lightly browned pine needles (like sautéed garlic), and those yet curling, cinnamon dusted ferns mix with this particular morning light, this coppery burnishment that moves us into the day.
Dawn, a different morning
I arrive at work as the sun rises over the harbor. I cross the street and strong shafts of light shoot straight across the water, straight up the street, straight through me, straight into the red sandstone blocks that make up St. Peter Cathedral. My eye is trapped. The church, tottering on the corner, is glowing copperishly. I think of a book I am reading, a novel that ties together families and generations, all of whom live and work and love and die in this town whose street I am crossing, and suddenly I know that Molly, one of the characters in the book, saw this same light at some point in her life; she saw the cathedral glow.
A different book
I am reading a borrowed book, and it is about copper. One chapter tells the tale of a copper boulder that once rested quietly on a river bank in the far north woods, the tale of a two-ton rock, a mass of native copper, a benign boulder, and how it ended up being bought, sold, moved, fussed over, argued about, transported, confiscated, and put on display. Today this boulder, which has traveled rivers and great lakes and seen Detroit, is stored away in the basement of a museum in Washington D.C. A few years back, a Native American tribe from the native copper's native land asked that the boulder be returned. The request was denied. The boulder, they said, is not sacred.
23 skidoo
The title of the lecture indicates we'll hear about ancient copper mining on the northern tip of this peninsula where I live, but after more than an hour of talk about Brittany and Orkney petroglyphs, maps of the Atlantic, and 23 oarsmen, I am ready to jump ship. When technical difficulties cause the lecturer to say, "Let's take a break," I do. Crossing the parking lot I hear faint music. I stop. I look around. Through broad second floor windows on the building I just left I see people dancing. I listen carefully. It sounds like "My Blue Heaven," Frank Sinatra.
Night
On the way home I stop along the lake to gaze at the stars. The Big Dipper is low, dipping toward the water. The Milky Way arches overhead. Back where I had come from, back in town, coppery orange lights glow and shimmer, kind of twinkling. I briefly wonder why non-twinkling lights should look is if they are twinkling. Is it the distance? An air quality? The lake? The water? No matter. I'd rather be here, wondering, than anywhere else, knowing.
References:
Dawn, a different morning
A different book
23 skidoo
