The Light Tonight

 The Light Tonight

The light tonight was soft and kind, orange peach alpenglow
lit the bluewhite mound of Mt Adams in the East.

What is it about maple trees, all goldeny between dark green firs,
we winding in dappled sun and shadow on the road
to pick ripe reisling grapes at the vineyard?

Whose life is this? Surrounded in rows of yellow leaved vines, mud cakes to my hiking boots
hands sticky from fruit, my lover holding out his hand,
with purple blue pinot grapes to taste.

The clouds parted again,
it was election day, but we, the proletariat playing hooky in
the vineyard were sheltered from the mess

of a country divided and sinking under the weight of billionaires and
how they can use money to make the sea wider and oilier.

After dinner my son practices his bass upstairs,
the sounds waft down, reverberate in my heart...
we read, and wait for our favorite cat to knock at the window.

Two years ago we were excited, we thought and hoped
we danced
Tonight we read to forget, and silently the waning moon rises
in a crystal clear sky
dotted with galaxies...
like little candles in the night wind.