Sunrise

Sunrise
Sunrise on Sunset Beach

Monday, February 4, 2013

To Go to Patagonia


"Pacific Coast" by David Noah,
Winterville, Georgia
January ruminations on a 
Sunday Times travel section



Athens, Georgia
February 4, 2013

Some truths hover
just past the point of perception
and pass into knowing
gradual as gray dawn

Grows from blue-black nights
to gentle winter days in Georgia
singing frost and white camellia,
silver age and pale regret:

You’ll never go to Patagonia
never trek the tortured plain
to breathe the bracing air of Andes
blowing off the icy sea.

You’ll never see auroras dance
unless by chance coronas leap
and sear the Southern sky with fire
an hour before your time of sleep.

You’ll go no more to Mykonos
nevermore return to youth
to stride the sands of Paradise
while clothed in fresh Aegean air.

Some truths lie
harmless as hibernating vipers
that wake on warm days
to feed on minds that give them life.

But winter afternoons can glow
as silver yields to tones of gold
and old camellias burst in color –
so it is with elder souls

Who step beyond belief and doubt,
and freed at last of empty strife
embrace the wondrous, fallen world
which harbors grace within the shadows.

From this veil I would chase truths
past the far end of perception
where they flit, unformed
above a lonely Patagonia

Where somehow, surely
amidst the sun-drenched daydreams of God
my doppelgänger draws near
the Torres del Paine.

"In the Museum" by David Noah, Winterville, Georgia