The Sun Bursts

The sun bursts from the trees

blazing gold, too bright,

dazzling my eyes,

yet fails to take the chill
from the autumn morning air.

The rock I find by the side of the road

The rock I find by the side of the road must have rolled down the hill from somewhere — some hidden house at the top. Though it’s near no human habitation now, it is marked in thick blue lines: the base of an arrow and a spiral, crooked and fading.

I rescue it of course and ask if it is willing to come home with me. Once there, I ask if it’s happy to be cleaned and go back to natural. I scrub the markings away and put it outside my front door as a guardian.

I think it looks strangely blank. I think I’ll ask it soon if it will permit me to adorn it with new markings. The rune for protection, maybe, looking like the fletch of an arrow. And perhaps, to signify the Goddess, a spiral….

I open my door at 6am

Late autumn sunrise streaks the sky.

Small birds flit and twitter through low trees.

A fat white ibis fossicks in the gutter,

stalking slowly (ignoring me), rhythmically

dipping and lifting its long, hooked beak.

Sunny

Autumn. The cats find sunny doorsteps.