sunrise ever on
this stage is acted God’s calm,
annual drama

Ever upon this stage,
Is acted God’s calm, annual drama,
Gorgeous processions, songs of birds,
Sunrise, that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul,
The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, the musical, strong waves,
The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering trees,
The flowers, the grass, the lilliput, countless armies of the grass,
The heat, the showers, the measureless pasturages,
The scenery of the snows, the winds’ free orchestra,
The stretching, light-hung roof of clouds—the clear cerulean, and the bulging,
silvery
fringes,
The high dilating stars, the placid, beckoning stars,
The moving flocks and herds, the plains and emerald meadows,
The shows of all the varied lands, and all the growths and products.

From A Carol of Harvest for 1867 by Walt Whitman as published in The Galaxy, an American monthly magazine founded by William Conant Church and his brother Francis P. Church in 1866, according to Wikipedia.

Also according to WIkipedia, Whitman’s position as a Galaxy author was important to his personal fortunes and his literary reputation. The Galaxy was respectable, it was popular, and it paid generously. It also provided a venue where Whitman could join with other writers in exploring the meaning of literary nationalism and cultural democracy for the new era.

Paid generously may be the most important two words in the lives of too many poets, artists and writers through all of history.

As Jim Harrison said once, “Just like all the writers’ schools have created less variety—there’s a sameness. I said once that the lowa Writers School on a yearly basis outproduces the English romantic movement. It’s all a delusion. What are you going to do with four thousand M.F.A.’s? It’s ludicrous.”

But the sunrise’s everyday in the God’s annual drama

Gorgeous processions, songs of birds.

Sunrise, that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul.

Generous, too, God, is.

on the level sand
between the sea and land … what
shall I build or write

Based on poem XLV. Smooth between sea and land in More Poems by A.E. Houseman, (New York, Alfred Knopf, 1936)

Smooth between sea and land
Is laid the yellow sand,
And here through summer days
The seed of Adam plays.

Here the child comes to found
His unremaining mound,
And the grown lad to score
Two names upon the shore.

Here, on the level sand,
Between the sea and land,
What shall I build or write
Against the fall of night?

Tell me of runes to grave
That hold the bursting wave,
Or bastions to design
For longer date than mine.

Shall it be Troy or Rome
I fence against the foam,
Or my own name, to stay
When I depart for aye?

Nothing: too near at hand,
Planing the figured sand,
Effacing clean and fast
Cities not built to last
And charms devised in vain,
Pours the confounding main.

bridge walkers drivers
sharing the experience
starting day today

In this post covid world I am allowed to work a ‘hybrid’ schedule of Monday and Friday at home and Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday in the office.

My commute takes me out onto a barrier island of America’s east coast where my office is.

They call this part of the world the Low Country because it is, on average, less than 10 feet above sea level and flat.

When we drive to Atlanta, we don’t hit a hill until we get to around Dublin, Georgia.

What this translates to is down here in the low country, unless you are on a beach, there are few views, few places with a view and almost all of the views are from bridges.

If we drive south the first vista is the approaches to the Tallmadge Bridge and then on the bridge itself, over the Savannah River.

If we drive north, we don’t see much until we get to the short bridge to Lemon Island and immediately after that, the long Robert Smalls Bridge over the Broad River.

No sailboats go this way so this bridge is more like a long, flat causeway.

All the way north to Charleston, there are only two other vistas, one over the Whale Branch and the other over the old rice fields next to the Combahee River where Harriet Tubman led a raid during the Civil War that rescued over 700 runaway slaves.

When you drive east towards the Atlantic Ocean, you get a good view of the Calibogue Sound and Skull Creek as you cross over to Hilton Head Island.

The last vista is on the island from the Cross Island Parkway where it crosses Broad Creek.

The last two bridges take you about three stories up so that people who have big sailboats can pass underneath.

I have lived here for 4 years and have yet to see a big sailboat pass under either of these bridges, but that is neither here no there.

From the top of the Cross Island Parkway Bridge is the last vista you get when you visit Hilton Head Island.

Unlike another island I am familiar with, Mackinac Island up in Michigan, Mackinac is a mountain top sticking up out of the Straits of Mackinac that connect Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.

On Mackinac, the further in you go, the higher up you get and any time you turn around, you have a view.

Here on a barrier island, the further in you get, the deeper in the woods you get and the greater chance of meeting an alligator.

So when you cross the Cross Island Bridge you better take in the view.

And usually I do.

Though it worries my wife, if it looks like I will see an interesting sun rise or cloud painting, I will get my phone and snap a few images as I drive over the bridge.

As I have done this so often, I can do this without thinking much about it.

My wife worries that I will get this reversed and think that I have driven over this bridge so often I can drive without thinking much and focus on taking a picture but that hasn’t happened … yet.

It is goofy to say, but I will set my phone back down, get to work and then at some point in my day I think, ‘Hey did I get any good pictures?‘

This morning was cold, clear and cloudless.

Looking at the sky I said to myself that it wasn’t going to be much of a sunrise picture this morning.

I went over the bridge and looked to my left to see the sunrise, I saw first one and then another person on the bridge walkway, both facing the sunrise and both with their phone’s out and up to record the moment.

I wanted to stop and say to them not to bother as this was not much a sunrise.

The black land, blue sky and a ball of yellow that would overwhelm their phone’s ability to record the moment.

Then it hit me.

Most likely there were visitors, tourists, folks who were here just for this week.

They had got up, literally, at the crack of dawn to capture the moment dawn first cracked over the Atlantic Coast.

I thought that these folks were far and away from their usual Wednesday of working and office and commute and they made an effort to see the sunrise and this was their day to see the sunrise and they were going to get a picture of the sunrise so that next week, next month, through the year, they could say, ‘did I get any good pictures?’ could pull out their phone and remind themselves that there were sunrise moments like the one today on the bridge, on a cold, clear, cloudless morning where they could watch the sunrise that made a day at work maybe a little more passable.

Then thought, I get to do this every day.

In that respect, I was happy to share the experience and start our day togather.