Sunday Morning on the River Road
I drive north to south on 9W, while
Sunday morning’s eyelids peer for
Some light in the dark, dark gray;
Hardly a suggestion of day.
On my left
The sleeping Hudson,
An early Sunday morning river with
Her silver eyes still shut, and up against the
Deep gray of the eastern shore, and Beacon;
While above, crowning her, north to south, a
Cloud or fog hovers,
Like Rachmaninoff’s long
Arched fingered silence just before the chord;
Like a whitened twenty mile long cloud of
Angels dancing a Celtic line dance in silence;
Like a white bone held up over a jumping pup;
Like the enticement of paradise
For me to look up and see
This cloud cap, only helicopter high.
I pull over and sit, charmed, in my car.
Like from a cracked egg, light breaks open.
Robert Phelps is a 74-year-old Franciscan priest living in Beacon.