Searching for Past Light

Deanne Bayer

A brooding day, caught
at the cusp
of seasons, clotted clouds
too paralyzed
for either snow or rain
wedged between
a brushed aluminum sky and hills
steeled with clinging winter.
Where can I tunnel
to find warmth
before the smoke of day
alloys with the slate of evening?

I could scrape memory’s surface
for yesterday’s
smoldering ghosts,
heating today
with the flush
of past expectations.

Or I could burrow
to retrieve
amber afternoons stoked
with summer’s honeyed sun,
when I devoured
youth’s barely digested spices,
gulped light
like a glass of chardonnay
and inflamed
mauve shadows
with the incandescent habit
of loving.