There are two worlds: the world that we can measure with line and rule,
and the world we feel with our hearts and imagination.

—Leigh Hunt

•••

In this place,
this new place,

not new at all,
not even to you

who have immersed
yourself in its loveliness

time and again, you sit
in the dark listening to

a new day germinating
outside the window,

seeping in like the gradual
light beginning to transform

the black jungle outside into
one-hundred-forty-two shades

of green, wildness touching
the edges of humanity where

roosters emphatically announce
the day amid doves’ gentle coos

dit-dit, dit-dit-dit-ing and

competing with the insistent
tweets of birds you can’t see.

The daily predawn counterpoint
swirls overhead as early traffic

swooshes by, not unlike waves
smashing into the sea wall

across the road, which you
cannot hear for all the wingéd

racket drenching your ears,
pulling you into a day in this

world that feels like home,
though it will never be

truly yours—you visitor
on this earth that bore you

and has borne you, giving
your radiant attention to music

created in this moment that,
like a good jazz solo,

will never sound precisely
this way again.

•••

With thanks to poet Marie Howe for an inspiring master class on Kauai.