I Came Upon An Opening, A Clearing In The Foliage, And The Sun, The Sun, El Sol Poem by Dennis Ryan

Tuesday, October 18,2022 at 11 a.m. and 2: 26 p.m.; Friday morning, October 21, begun at 8: 12 a.m. and completed at 8: 29 a.m.

I came upon an opening, a clearing
in the foliage—a long expanse of green
and gold—and the sun, the sun, el sol,
the rays, los rayas de sol expanding
like Olson's "figure of outward", expanding,
generating energy like the poet himself,
los rayas so few, yet one-two-three they
radiated outward, expanding from sun center,
the sunpoint hitting the right side of my face
and shoulder, and so I turned to face the sun
straight on as I stood at a fixed point, position,
my feet unmoving, yet I could not, of course,
tolerate looking straight into the sun—as I can
at the truth, burning, burning now "to the boys in..."
—at the sun's center point, and time, time, time
was passing and passing up to this very moment
of writing this poem down—the sun's warmth
moving inside my neck and shoulders on this
cold and windswept October day, October
the birth month of my son Shawn and niece
Katie Ryan, and now I know how this poem
will end yet never will end, how this poem
is coeval with this time and place and all
other times and places as well and them
as they live out their days, Shawn and Katie,
count down the longer days and nights of
their separate but ever-present loves and lives.