I looked outside this morning

Just when the world began to stir

            from sleep.

 

A pale blue sky rose from the jagged outline

            of trees and hills

            and stretched from there to reach

            the breadth of my scanning eye-

            too blue to be a baby's blanket.

 

The kind of blue a traveler meets

            when rising for a long day's journey;

            a blue that deepens into deeper blues

            as the day becomes full-blown

                        like a poppy field at noon.

            No bird, no cloud, no flying thing is bold enough

                        to intrude.

            A blue of robins' eggs.

            A blue of bluebirds' wings.

            No blue of faint nostalgia of a sad song's singing

                        but of a protest song of hope.

 

A pale blue canvas upon which God has granted

            me a brush and palette

 

to paint my day upon.