Sunlight

History shines here, filtered
through the trees and mixing
with the sunlight that warms our
necks just as it did
years ago creating a dense fog
we’ve almost stopped
noticing.

We choose the sun, tickling
our necks as we face
another day, heads held high,
with a long-remembered warmth encircling,
enveloping,
encouraging us onward.

We find the heat, massaging
our chests as we perspire
through the thick air, breathing hard,
with a too-familiar determination warming,
warning,
wearing us onward.

Still, we live in its shadow,
and while we choose to
stay in the light we see
our shadows play longer
though we blindly seek a refuse
from cold breezes
stirring up again.

---

Phillip Knight Scott | © 2019

This is a revised/mutated version of a couple of poems that have morphed into … this? Can poems be living things? Or is this merely a matter of me being hard to please? (No comment on that.)