Good Morning

Mary Birnbaum

I arrived as Robert Lowell was just leaving the Arnold Arboretum after a run, clad in athletic gear, tiny drops of sweat on his forehead. He was gazing past me, seemingly into a critical heaven.

At the far end of the Willow Path, a poem was rising splendid into the sky, flashing in the occasional patches of water, that, even in shade, appeared to be separate from the earth.

I passed dog walkers, noticing in the precise morning light how they were joined to their companions by taut leash, sharing one soul and one attention. I was only an observer, invisible, but I was there to be refreshed, to understand, only the intimacy of dew brings color into the universe.