Upon the hilltop in a sea of unmarred green
we looked down upon the soft folds of the farther hills.
The cloudless sky, in this direction,
was the softest eggshell blue,
as fine and pure and illuminated as rare china.
That was what the water did to it.
The atmosphere rising from the wetlands and the sea,
it had a nature as unique as any character,
its presence built of light, moisture, reflectivity,
currents and convections, stirrings and coilings, tides,
all of this and more we were aware of here upon the hilltop
because that was the way it was, when we were together,
heightened, all arteries, veins, nerves, all these channels
vitalized and sensitized, seeking and saving. For it was more:
the moon, too, you see, and Jupiter and comets and other planets
and stars and galaxies and explosions and radiations of all kinds
and they all came
down
to making the sky there beautiful for us.