Sunlight

Sunlight captures and conditions the color of the air a certain way sometimes 

and a moment I recognize having sensed in my childhood comes forward to meet this one, all the same moment, timeless 

and future retrospect is with me too,

it is a through line of my life

nameless, quiet.

I am not ahead of myself,

I am not catching up

I am not waiting

It is all one moment:

that yesterday 

this now

daydreamed future

when it happens 

just like this—

naturally, reliably

present

familiar, like a place,

comforting, like a friend—

I smoothen like the sunlight

as it sets shadow on a building, or flower, or hillside, or bench.

Always there comes the point 

where my attention is drawn away

dissipating to distraction

until another stay.

Jeanosullivan 08/26/2024