the blood of the sun / is on the water / where the water and the air // for a moment become one / in the bleeding heat / and simmering light

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The point of this exercise is to walk the stepping stones of gold light from the sunrise, to let gold infuse one's bones with faith to walk on shards of light without submerging back to night. The sun has crept up behind a wall of cloud to convey an eye peeking through a blind, a line of sight to belay the boat that might today set sail to take me where it cannot fail. So I imagine taking my first step like Saint Peter or like a toddler making a move to walk and teeter toward the thrill of waking words and a murmuration of birds. So the sunrise charts my path and the oracle of days frees me from the risk of wrath, assures me of breezy ways singing my sails towards the sea to a new world awaiting me.

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A calm pink and blue sky sets the scene for a return to normalcy and light. There is a change in the air, a feeling of the mending of the structure of reality. The birds in the garden partake of the poetry of the replenishment of the water from the hose coming from miles and miles away to sparkle in the rising sun. Jesus said deliver us from evil and lead us not into temptation. And when deliverance comes let us relax and enjoy it — no need to yammer on and on. Yet we may also speak and our words may form poems to describe the rising and to celebrate the sky. Let us go then into the day. And let us go then, you and I.

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how the sun rises / how it never stops / can be easily explained // people can be taught and trained / science and theory / from old history

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A poem from my book, House of Words (Korrektiv Press, 2010, p. 11) and a recently unearthed earlier version published in The Whitman College Pioneer (Feb 12, 1987, p. 9).

Written and performed by Jonathan Potter (jopomojo poetry podcast, 2023).

Listen to the audio above and let me know in the comments which version you prefer.

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The opening of the gate may be early, may be late, but enter, don't hesitate, this is your time, so seize it, grab the sunrise and squeeze it onto your tongue to please it like an orange ripe with juice, like an ace against a deuce, like a river to a moose, like the time I kissed your lips, like the time you spread your hips, like the gate through which time slips into eternity’s smile, into paradise a while while karma deletes your file from the server of the damned, from the chaos of the slammed, from the ram and ewe just lambed giving birth to a new day, making you light when you weigh the odds of the color gray turning velvety and gilt, gold intentionally spilt across the landscape that we built.

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The focus of the present is to share this moment of mystery with someone, your traveling companion and guide to good manners, perhaps, on this strange journey into the vastness of tomorrow and the day after the day after that, the days lining up like birds on a wire preparing to fly away one by one as you trace their flight paths across the horizons of their inevitable migrations to lands unknown, to places barely born and yet eternally old, which is why you must not let trivialities come between you and the prize lurking in the here and now, the gold nugget of love already in your pocket.

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The swallows, martins, gulls, and chirping wrens pay little mind to me along the shore where Kaniatarowanenneh bends around the elbow of the island, more like morning, scented with the after-rain, than later when the sun begins to bake the air, and future memories complain that time is always lurking and will take the sunrise and the morning on its way to afternoon and evening getting dark, the long night to have the final say, to pluck with death the song out of the lark, and yet again we trust another morning will come when Alouette sings its warning.

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A saffron blackberry sunrise

above the ungainly sweet

potato shaped lump of land set

down to divide the flow of

Kaniatarowanenneh

on its way to the great sea.

There's something different in the air

this morning, a turning point,

not the finish line but the thought

of a new world and this one

changing, changing, no turning back,

everything the same but new.

The river, the birds, the beaver —

all seem tuned in to this change,

this change to what remains the same.

The river is eddying,

the birds are gliding and swinging

in higher arcs than before.

I see the beaver lift its head

above the surface to look

at me and then to dive again

to the secret places there

along the shore, using its tail

to tell me a secret tale.

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1. Keeping Still, Mountain My heart like a mountain in the rain Like yesterday's rainfall I listened to the news As I drove to the sunrise Awakened by a rush of blood My dreams reminded me of love 2. Influence (Wooing) Like a calm lake in the mountains My mind reflects the rising sun Recalls the breakthrough of light As the memory of rain Awakens feelings of joy A lingering dream's sensation

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