Morning Light

April 19, 2018 by Kate Muir

Morning Light

For Jay

Perhaps it was a Sunday

I can’t remember because it was one of those days

held like the sun’s heat in rocks

that precious, sometimes unexpected, welcomed warmth

but it was morning, and I had slept in your arms,

and I didn’t open my eyes hoping for love

because, like this morning, everything seemed right there

and at breakfast I felt light cascading

across the Westport River, through the cottage windows,

onto my face, my tired, pregnant body

while I was drinking a little coffee

with milk and cinnamon

and eating pea greens with my fingers so I could see

closely such intrinsic beauty

And I was looking at you (though you were looking away)

and I was thinking of you and how I could spend all my days

with this feeling of sunlight, with this palpable love

with your not needing to go elsewhere, but here

with you sitting next to me,

drinking coffee in the morning light

with those pea greens, that green against your eyes: serene

Some days I wake up not knowing how to feel loved. It isn’t as though love isn’t there, but rather that I am so sensitive to words and touch. And so if the day doesn’t begin with “I love you” or a thoughtful kiss or embrace, I am yet to know how to feel the assumption of love as something strong enough to sustain. But this morning was one that made me feel whole in terms of love. I woke up on his shoulder, swaddled in his arms. I woke up feeling his body’s warmth and feeling so comforted by his smell. And then came, what seemed, the first warm morning sunlight of spring. It flooded the space, seemed love itself, simplifying the room into an essence that couldn’t be retracted. And in this space it felt so good to drink coffee and eat pea greens and look at him and think what I always think, and yet today to also say so silently into sunlight, I love you, I love you, I love you. I would spend all my days with you.