Faint fingers of color filter the first tints of rising sun
out beyond the fields and fringe of trees bordering the river.
The slightest hues of pink and violet, indigo and orange,
the barest bit of something brighter than gray
give hints of coming day and something of greater light.

I’d like to stop for a while, watch and shoot,
but I have too many miles to travel and a cheap camera to boot—
there’s no way these soft tints would show through
in digitalized view of something this grand:
the whole of eastern sky reduced to something smaller than a hand.

Those light strokes gently brushed as thin streaks
that reach from south toward north,
thin wisps of passing weather drawn into long lines
as fine as the tips of pin feathers,
these cannot last more than a few more minutes.

I keep driving—north mostly though with an eastern drift—
see the shifting of soft streaks caught in the crease between
the subtle dawning of day and burning sunrise,
that turns into solid gray shapes with nothing left
but a thin jagged break of titanium defining the empty space

between what was and what will be.

There is also beauty in the subtle life,
unhurried actions that speak of deeper glory,
softer stories that live in quiet lives
whose gentle touch achieves so much,
without the least lifting of seeking attention.

H. Arnett
4/20/17