Twilight

I look one way from the porch as far
As the summer light and the crowding trees --
As much as a couple of hundred yards --
Allow the eye; though for all it sees,

One way, straight forward, it misses much.
But the eye can wander, unconfined,
And frame a view to satisfy
The longer sightings of the mind.

Beyond the darkness of the trees,
The sunlight falling free suggests 
A landlocked bay. The eye perceives
The light at least, and there it rests

Until, distracted, I can look
Away. The air moves every leaf.
The branches bend. The landscape stirs.
Imagination, like belief,

Transforms the world. I look again
Down past the shadow. I can see 
The bay and all the land beyond.
And I am where I out to be.


A Kind of View, by Samuel French Morse


I originally had a different photo for today, but these clouds captured my imagination so I stepped out onto the porch and came away with this. Doing so scared away the big tom turkey and his admirers who have been loitering about the yard all day. There were flickers on the lawn when I got home as well. Any day now we'll see the phoebe, and maybe even that palm warbler who always passes through before all his cousins get here. Spring marches on!