Chasing Golden Raindrops--for James Schuyler

Chasing Golden Raindrops

 

After work one evening,

I rode my bike home, the long way.

The sky, enhanced by Canadian wildfires,

Was itself on fire, the color of flames

Orange and red, blue blaze. Ashy

clouds with singed edges, wafted

above, adding to the wooly haze.

Air quality alert, my skin tingled—

I felt a tightness in my chest as I

Hurried along the path, in and out

Of the trees, bright patches, then suddenly

Submerged in shadow. adding to the eeriness.

By the bridge over the marsh, a burst of rain

Unexpected, as if dousing the sunset,

The filtered light casting each droplet in gold.

 

In “Light from Canada” James Schuyler muses

On the symmetry, the realization that the world,

This giant ball, upon which we are all bound together,

Living and breathing under one sun, one moon, one sky,

standing on the water’s edge, the Atlantic

Washes the shores of both Canada and the US,

So also the wildfires, the air and light are shared.

 

In another poem, “Light Blue Above”, he begins:

“O Air—the clear, the soot-bearer”

This is extremely prescient, “the unseen that rips

That kills and cures, that keeps

All that is empty filled—

The bright invisible.”

 

From Nova Scotia, from Quebec, along the Eastern Seaboard,

Down through the straits, across the Great Lakes, the UP,

Lands once belonging to the Anishnaabeg –

The Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi peoples

From the Light Blue Above and the Light from Canada

I stand on holy ground, part of the Bright Invisible,

Showered in golden raindrops.