Our Wonderful World: Sunrise

Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.

27. Sunrise

It's a
daily wonder
most people sleep right through.
I've sung sun's praises since childhood.
Still do.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014

I'm a morning person. I love sunrise. We're good friends. I actually love the darkness right before sunrise almost as much as the sunrise itself. Anticipation, expectation...then...renewal.

And what I said about singing sun's praises? I meant that literally. I remember, at about 5 years old, running out into the middle of the back yard and belting out "Heavenly Sunshine" (a Bible School song) first thing on summer mornings. I remember standing at the kitchen sink with mom, singing "You Are My Sunshine." I remember, as a high schooler, playing my guitar and leading the Easter Sunrise Service congregation in "Morning Has Broken."

I grew up in a place where the most distinctive feature of the landscape is the horizon. Drive five minutes out of town in any direction and you can see all 360° of it. The upshot of this is that I grew up watching the sky, the sun, the clouds. Some people feel an emotional pull to mountains, some to ocean. But I feel most myself when I'm in that spacious open land with nothing around me and the bright blue bowl of the sky above me.

We're winding down the Our Wonderful World project and Poetry Month 2014. I'm glad I saved some personal wonders for these last four days. The big wide amazing world is one thing, but our small particular dear-to-us worlds are even more precious. Because they are ours.

Kevin has a sunrise/sunset mirror poem for today.

Carol's sunrise poem is at Carol's Corner.