Dawn welcomes reverie in the moments between sleeping and waking. In this magical interval, after the oblivious chaos of night but before the rational coherence of day, imagination may prevail.
Victoria Thomas, in her poem “Pasadena Dawn,” explores this liminal time.
Pasadena Dawn
Maybe this is how forgiveness comes:
Massless particles touch the wall of a garage, making it golden,
The palm of an old hand pressed against a daughter’s burning cheek.
The 210 sighs like surf through the open bedroom window.
The lemon tree pushes out another winter of lemons,
Even though its bark is black and peeling.
Morning opens on the canyon like a prayer.
— Victoria Thomas
Victoria Thomas spent her childhood in the South Bronx, skipping school to take the bus to The Cloisters where the unicorn tapestries telepathically spoke to her in medieval French. As a student in Colorado, she studied with Allen Ginsberg at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Boulder, and these days writes mostly tanka and haiku.
Local News Pasadena (LNP) publishes poems grounded in current news events from the greater Pasadena, California area. Submit your own poetry here.
I floated into this poem, in to the healing moment it reveals. Forgiveness. A cleansing of the past in the new moment. Just right, every reference to nature and city life. Just right. And sublime.